Mets Gambling Review: Player Props

Last March we took a look at some preseason prop bets for individual players which you can read here, It's time to check back in and see just how off I was.

Jason Bay 2012 Batting Average
O/U .250
My Pick: Over (but it might be pretty close)
Actual: .165
Well Jason Bay ended up having 32 hits this year. In my defense while Bay has been bad for a few years he has never been quite this bad. He hit .240 last year and never before under .250 in any year before so while I think over .250 may have been a homer pick, I don't think anyone was predicting .165. 

Jason Bay 2012 HR's
O/U 15.5
My Pick: Over
Actual:8
I got this one wrong also but I don't feel so bad about it. Bay hit 8 homers in 194 AB this year, in a full year or even just 400 AB he likely would have been able to reach 16. I was betting on what I thought Bay's power production would be not whether or not he would be injured or strike out so much he would end up benched regularly. Wow. I think that might have been the closest I have come to complimenting Jason Bay all year, I feel dirty.

David Wright 2012 Batting Average
O/U .275
My Pick: Over
Actual: .306
This was a no brainer. D Wright had one of his best seasons ever but even when he was playing poorly he always put up a decent batting average. He is a lifetime .300 hitter who has only hit under .275 once. That happened to be last year. Things like this are always a great value in betting. Wright hits .254 last year so they books give him an deflated o/u. Anyone who watches baseball can say that his .254 was probably an outlier and clean up on this bet.


David Wright 2012 HR's
O/U 22.5
My Pick: Over
Actual:21
Missed it by an inch. Again this was kind of a homer pick. Wright's power numbers have been trending down for years and if this were a non Met I probably wouldn't have bet it. I thought he would hit in the high teens and maybe the short Citi field walls would get me over, in the end I was about right but fell just short of covering.

Johan Santana 2012 ERA
O/U 3.45
My Pick: No Bet
Actual: Didn't Qualify
Johan's ERA for 2012 was 4.85 but he needed 135 IP for this bet to qualify and he only ended with 117. I chose not to make this bet because I thought that ERA was impossible to guess, however if I had guessed I would never have put Johan over 4.  He had never even sniffed in the general direction of a 4 ERA before so it didn't seem likely that he would do it now. Anyone who took the under should be happy they didn't let him pitch two more games.

Johan Santana 2012 Wins
O/U 9
My Pick: Over
Actual: 6
When I made my prediction I called this the " "Santana 2012 Health" bet because there was pretty much no way that Johan would not win 10 if he played all year. I was right. He won 6 games in about half a year and would have cruised to at least 4 more wins if he had been healthy. My mistake here was to bet on Johan to stay healthy. Every recent trend indicated he probably wouldn't have a full year but I was fueled by fandom and a good Spring Training, pro top kids: never make bets based on Spring Training performance.

Mike Pelfrey 2012 Wins
O/U 9.5
My Pick: Under
Actual: 0
Remember Mike Pelfrey? I feel like all I used to do was blog about how much I disliked Big Pelf. Then he faded away never to be heard from again. Pelfrey had a pretty strong 20 innings this year then promptly got himself hurt and out for the season. With any luck we will never see him a Mets uniform again. This was the bet I felt the most confidence in and i was happy to win it.

R.A. Dickey 2012 Wins
O/U 11.5
My Pick: Over
Actual:20
I lied. This was the bet I felt the most confident in. Anyone who reads this blog knows that I love the Dickster. He was so incredibly underrated coming into this year and it an absolute pleasure to see everyone else see what I have been saying for a few years. R.A. Dickey is one of the best pitchers in baseball. 

Frank Francisco 2012 Saves
O/U 30.5
My Pick: Under
Actual: 23
He actually looked like he might do it for a second but then he remembered he was Frank Francisco and did exactly what he did every year he has ever pitched. Frank Frank is a strong for a month or two, then blows up, then loses his closers job. This is what always happens. Frank Frank's performance this year was the most predictable thing possible, how did Sandy and co. not see this? It angers me to no end that this guy earns 5 million dollars for what he does.

So I went 4/8 on these bets which is not a bad record considering the difficult nature of predicting individual player performances. Feel free to share your failed or successful Mets bets in the comments.