I did some quick analysis of the market for MLB series prices, comparing three other books to Pinnacle.  Because of the volume per bet Pinnacle is willing to take, one can uncover some intriguing insight into what big money bettors might be betting.  The other offshore books I used were Bodog, TheGreek, and Heritage, extracting the fair value and calculating the difference from Pinnacle’s listed odds to come up with an overall average market differential.  Other than that the tables are self-explanatory, the last column highlights certain teams that may have market value for that series future at the current prices.

It appears Texas has slight World Series market value of a little over 1%, and considerable ALCS value at 3%.  They have an interesting draw in the first round against the Rays.  Tampa has decided to start the highly touted Matt Moore, who in 9.1 IP this year has 15 K , 3 BB, and a 1.286 WHIP.  Moore is a bit of an enigma, a term that can just be thrown around to any player who lacks a sufficient sample size.  But the Rays expect tremendous things from Moore.  He held his opponents to an OPS under .500 in 52.2 IP while playing for AAA Durham of the International League this year.

The game one line is set at Texas -172 (Wilson) with a total (8 -118/108) right in line with Wilson’s season average.  Wilson will pitch again, if necessary, in game four versus David Price, unless Tampa decides to pitch Price in game three.  The decision to start Matt Moore means either Niemann or Hellickson (or both) will be moved to the bullpen, at least for this series.