Cardinals avoid arbitration with Schumaker
Baseball Betting Lines
02/08/2010 -
St. Louis, MO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The St. Louis Cardinals avoided salary
arbitration with Skip Schumaker, agreeing to terms with the second baseman on
a two-year contract.
The 30-year-old Schumaker became the first Cardinal since Red Schoendienst
(1945-46) to move from the outfield to second base from one year to the next.
He started 124 games at second base last season while also playing games in
each of the outfield positions and finished the campaign with a .303 batting
average, four homers, 35 RBI and 85 runs scored.
"Heading into spring training last year our club had uncertainties at both
leadoff hitter and the second base position," said Cardinals general manager
John Mozeliak. "Skip answered both those questions. The transformation he made
as an outfielder moving to second was truly remarkable and a testament to his
dedication and athleticism. He is the kind of hard-working player that the
Cardinals and our fans appreciate and we are thrilled to have with us for the
next two years."
It was the third consecutive season Schumaker has topped .300 as a batting
average.
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period.
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Indianapolis Colts, making it the most watched event in television history.
The ga
<< Raiders name Pendergast assistant coach
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<< Wizards/Hawks rescheduled for March 11
Washington, DC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Washington Wizards home game against
the Atlanta Hawks, postponed Saturday to a blizzard in the nation's capital,
has been rescheduled for March 11 at the Verizon Center.
Both teams were unable to
Danica, have at it and have a good time >>
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - NASCAR officials originally set the theme
for this year's Speedweeks at Daytona International Speedway last month when
they told Sprint Cup Series drivers, "boys, have at it and have a good time."
Officials s
Butler at the top of the Horizon again >>
Indianapolis, IN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Matt Howard went 12-of-14 from the free
throw line in a 20-point effort, and 18th-ranked Butler used a big second half
to down Loyola-Chicago, 62-47, and clinch a share of the Horizon League title.
Will
Reynolds leads Villanova past West Virginia in Big East showdown >>
Morgantown, WV (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Scottie Reynolds scored 19 of his 21 points
in the second half, as No. 4 Villanova handed fifth-ranked West Virginia an
82-75 defeat in a Big East showdown at WVU Coliseum.
The Wildcats (21-2, 10-1 Bi
Cliff Lee undergoes foot surgery >>
Seattle, WA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Seattle Mariners lefty Cliff Lee underwent
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Sharks use Clowe's third period goal to beat Leafs >>
Toronto, ON (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Ryane Clowe's goal in the third period lifted
the San Jose Sharks to a 3-2 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs at Air Canada
Centre.
Dan Boyle and Joe Pavelski each had a goal for the Sharks, who have won f
NFL Football Trash Talk
Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).
Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject
would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms.
Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.
Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).
Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends,
their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.
Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the
sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies
your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming
the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like
your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in
defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your
hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say,
will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.
The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt
focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea
is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to
make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.
What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.
Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.
But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.
In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.
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 ...
read more
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