Giants open -156, close -113

[PerpetualCzech]

How can this not be a square move? The reason I ask this is that the total barely moved from the opener (close 2 cents lower).

If you have an opinion on Atlanta winning then that means you think they will score more runs than the market reflects or you think they will give up less runs than the market reflects. Either way the total should move appropriately along with the side.

The only way the total shouldn't move is if you have two independent reasons on the offense and pitching/defense that also happen to be of the same magnitude. That just seems too coincidental for this to be a "valid" (i.e. sharp) move.

[donovan]

This move is so big, it makes me wonder what was going on? Any lineup changes?

I agree the total staying the same did not jive with the line move.

[The Chaperone]

jibe*

[Twoniner]

I think it's more likely to have big bettors favoring some combination of the Braves hitting and pitching matchups then having the public be responsible for such a large move. Maybe they bet the total as well but for smaller and there was resistance. Also, if they really liked the Braves pitching matchup, their lean to the under could be partially offset by the increased chance of playing the bottom of the 9th.

[GroovinMahoovinPartDeux]

I thought the opener in that game was a flat out mistake. Before adjusting for park effects I have the Braves offense as a bit better than SF's and Hanson and Cain as very similar. CHONE, ZIPS, and PECOTA all had the two either equal or Hanson a bit better. So if we assume the two are equal, for the line to be -156, we'd have to assume SF's offense is significantly better than ATL's and I don't believe that's the case. ATL outscored SF by 0.26 runs/game this year. That includes about half a season of Chipper and almost a full season of Prado, so ATL's current offense isn't as good as the season to date numbers, but I definitely don't believe SF's offense is significantly better.

The total looked a teeny bit high, before factoring in weather, as I recall I came up with a total of 6.8 or so, which I didn't perceive as a big enough edge to bet. I find MLB totals to be a bit of a pain in the ass so I'm conservative with betting them. I haven't read Daringly's book in its entirety yet, but when I read the section about MLB modeling I had a chuckle at the part where he mentioned problems with computing totals because of the mean and median thing, as I had the exact same problem and came up with the exact same solution.