Bet on MLB Spring Training
For baseball fans, Spring Training is always a great time of the year. No teams have lost any regular season games yet, and every fan has high hopes for their favorite team. From a betting standpoint, Spring Training games are far more difficult to predict, but they can be more profitable as well.
If you’re looking for a place to bet on 2012 MLB Spring Training games, below are the best online sportsbooks for US bettors.
Best Spring Training Betting Sites
MLB Spring Training Betting Strategy
Spring Training differs from the regular season for a number of reasons. First, winning isn’t the first goal of most teams. Most teams are trying to get a good look at their younger players, and get their starters ready for the regular season. Winning tends to be a byproduct of everything else going on.
The typical MLB betting strategy for regular season games is to compare pitchers and starting players. During Spring Training however, most of the starters only play a few innings, and many more players get into each game. With more unknowns during Spring Training, we have to do more research.
Some handicappers put quantitative numbers on the likelihood of different things that might happen during a game. Then they use those numbers to get an edge on their bets. However, that’s more work than most people want to put into it, and unless you’re betting professionally it’s probably more work than it’s worth. Besides, how fun is online sports betting if you’re doing math 24 hours a day?
Personally, I try to keep it as simple as possible, answering the most important questions. How many innings are the starting pitchers going to throw? Which pitchers will go after them? Which star players are playing in this game, and who is sitting out? How many innings are the star players likely to play? Which team has the best rookies playing today?
If you can answer those questions with a fair level of accuracy, you’re well on your way to becoming profitable betting on MLB Spring Training games.
Types of Spring Training Bets
Most online sportsbooks offer the same types of Spring Training bets as they do for regular season games. The exception to this might be fewer props, and lack of live betting. With that said, the most common types of MLB baseball betting options are money lines, run lines, and over/under bets. All of these types of bets can be found at the recommended betting sites in the chart above.
During the regular season, odds on money line bets are heavily based on the starting pitchers. During Spring Training however, starting pitchers throw less innings per game. This means that the money lines have more to do with a teams overall ability rather than the ability of a single pitcher.
This is also a good reason to make ‘first 5-inning’ bets when the sportsbooks offer them. In 1st 5-inning bets, the wager is considered final at the end of the 5th inning, meaning the starting pitchers have a larger impact on this type of wager.
Over/unders (totals) are generally higher during Spring Training than during the regular season as well. The typical game will have more pitchers, more base stealing, and more aggressive hitting as well. While some batters are trying to develop their patience at the plate, most of them are trying to find their groove. We also have younger & less experienced pitchers on the mound, so offenses tend to score more runs.
