Surrey's Ellis chasing major league dream
Baseball Betting Lines
07/28/2010 -
Thunder Bay, Canada (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Mike Ellis is like any other player on
Canada's junior national baseball team - following his passion by playing the
sport he loves.
What's different about him and the rest of Team Canada's 18-and-unders is that
they're chasing a dream very few people their age will ever experience.
So when the 18-year-old pitcher from Surrey, B.C. was selected by the San Diego Padres in the 35th round of the 2010 MLB Draft in June, Ellis accomplished
something far from the norm of his peers.
He remembers following the draft online before going to school that day and how
it sunk in later that night that his dream of making it to the major leagues
was very much alive.
"I was sitting down and it hit me that I have an opportunity to still play pro
ball and it doesn't really matter what round I get selected, but where I end
up," said Ellis at the junior national team's workouts in Toronto earlier this
month.
Where he is now is in Thunder Bay, Ont. representing his country and competing
for a world title against the best young baseball players on the planet.
"It's special being able to play for your country," said Ellis, after throwing
four scoreless innings in a 9-2 win over Panama at the Worlds on Tuesday night.
"I've never had a chance to do that in a tournament like this."
Ellis, who has experienced the perils and spoils of being a star pitcher in his
hometown of Surrey, said nothing's quite like donning the red and white on an
international stage.
"I've played in a few national tournaments but compared to this, it's a whole
new level," he said prior to arriving in Thunder Bay.
He's experienced that other level too, joining teammate and Texas Rangers'
first round pick Kellin Deglan at the Seattle Mariners' pre-draft training camp
prior to being selected by the Padres.
For a pitcher whose strengths lay in his ability to command the strike zone and
keep hitters off balance with breaking pitches, Ellis said it was a little
overwhelming to be in an environment where six-foot-five, 230-pound college
players were a dime a dozen.
"It really was humbling knowing the kind of competition you're getting into,
the guys you're competing for spots with," he said. "I know that I don't have
the body type to be the 95-98 miles per hour fastball guy that strikes
everybody out.
"I try to be efficient and stay within myself."
At six-foot-one and 180 pounds, Ellis said he focuses on fooling hitters with
off-speed pitches rather than blowing them away with heat.
The right-hander's arsenal includes a slider he's been working on since spring
training in Florida, one he said back-doors on righties and cuts in on lefties.
With a fastball topping out in the 88-90 miles per hour range, Ellis is
constantly trying to figure out ways to maximize his strengths on the mound.
"I want to get a little bit better throwing to both sides of the plate with all
my pitches," he said, describing the benefit of working with guys such as
pitching coach and former major league pitcher Paul Quantrill. "We have really
good coaches with a lot of good insight and professional experience."
Ellis knows locating his pitches will be key in a tournament like the Worlds,
where Padres' scouts are sure to be in attendance as he tries to pitch his way
into a major league contract.
Should the Padres choose not to sign him before the August 15 deadline, Ellis
will attend Florida International in Miami, a Division I school where he
expects to compete for a spot in the starting rotation.
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Contract negotiations could get started as early as next week. Let's see which team has the deeper pockets. Will MLB baseball betting lines despite allegations of steroid use? Bet On It at www.MySportsbook.com .
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Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?
Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.
“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.
“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “
What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?
There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).
Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).
How the Opening Line Is Made
The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.
Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.
Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.
Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.
The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.
A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.
Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:
Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game
Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)
The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.
Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.
For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.
Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."
“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”
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Bonds nearly hits HR 751, SF wins
4 and drove in
a pair of runs, and Barry Bonds nearly hit homer No. 751 as San Francisco beat
1, in the middle contest of three at AT&T Park.
6) allowed five hits and one run over 6 2/3 innings, fanning
eight and walking three.
game slide.
Bonds, who came within five homers of Hank Aaron's record on Friday, went
1 with three walks, an RBI double and scored twice. The double ...
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