So, I’ve been messing around with baseball stats lately, specifically historical odds for MLB games. It’s a wild ride, let me tell you. I’ve always been a huge baseball fan, and numbers? Love ’em. So, combining the two seemed like a no-brainer.
First thing I did was try to find a good, reliable source of data. You wouldn’t believe how much junk is out there. I mean, it’s like wading through a digital swamp. Finally, I stumbled upon a decent dataset, but it was a mess. Dates all over the place, team names were inconsistent, and some of the odds were just plain missing. Classic, right?
I spent a solid day just cleaning this thing up. I used my trusty old spreadsheet program to get everything sorted. Lots of find-and-replace, some manual editing, and a whole lot of coffee got me through that part. Felt like a real data janitor, you know?
Once the data was somewhat presentable, I started to play around with it. I wanted to see if I could find any interesting patterns or trends. For example, I checked if there was a correlation between the odds and the final score of the game. Basic stuff, but you gotta start somewhere.
Then I wanted to see if I could find if I could figure out a way to predict the outcome of a game. Did some calculations like what is the probability of winning if the odds is 2.0. You would be surprised, but the result turned out to be the same as the bookie’s odd.
After that, I focused on one of my favorite team. I calculated their winning percentage based on the opening and closing odds to see if there is any interesting pattern that can be found.
The results so far? Well, let’s just say it’s complicated. There are some hints of things here and there, but nothing definitive yet.
I’m not giving up, though. I’m going to keep digging, trying out different approaches, and see what I can uncover. Maybe I’ll even try to build a simple predictive model, just for fun. Who knows, maybe I’ll stumble upon something that’ll make me a fortune! (Probably not, but a guy can dream, right?)
Anyways, that’s my little adventure in the world of MLB historical odds so far. It’s been frustrating, rewarding, and everything in between. I’ll keep you all posted on my progress. Stay tuned!
