I glance at MLB game scores every so often. And try to figure out how much steroid usage has increased or decreased since the Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire era. And whether I can use that trend to chart a better prediction of total game scores and point spreads.
To an outsider like me, baseball seems like a psychologically intensive sport. I would be interested to know how much the mental training side of things has progressed over the past few decades.
It seems to me that teams are scoring more average points in the current era. In contrast to previous ones. Something similar is also happening in the NBA. Betting points over might be worthwhile.
Not certain about the level of motivation or competition in all star games. I would guess athletes are more focused on the playoffs. MLB all star games are like the pro bowl. Its more a social event than a game. Athletes could be more focused on resting and not injuring themselves in preparation for the big games to come. Rather than focusing on winning.
I think there is no question that steroid use has gone down, but there’s absolutely still some of that going on and labs seems to always be able to keep up with testing in finding ways to get around it, so there’s that too.
Point totals seem to have gone up some, at times anyhow. Another factor for higher point totals the past few years (not including this year) is the fact that the baseball itself was “juiced”. The commissioner of MLB is a moron, and won’t admit that the ball was altered by MLB in order to try and drive up scoring/making the ball go further. It was a scientifically proven fact they were altered baseballs, but of course it was never acknowledged. Anyhow this of course has to be taken in to account when looking at scoring %’s.
Motivation for the all star game is so so. It’s absolutely taken far more seriously than the NFL all star game as well as the NBA. The other two sports are just too dangerous to play in terms of the risk of getting hurt but baseball carries a far less risk, so they are willing to go harder. The all star game also used to actually count for something. The league winner between the American and National League would get home field advantage in the World Series.
I will never bet on a Home Run Derby again. These last couple years they just don’t take the rules completely seriously and they are letting guys get extra home runs that shouldn’t have counted.
