Baseball has returned, but in a strange way. Three major rule changes are on full display.
1) No exaggerated shifts by the infielders. This is designed to increase hits.
2) Larger bases. This is designed for more stolen bases.
3) Introducing a clock for pitchers and batters to speed up the game.
The early data is in, and it looks like these rules are working as designed. Whether this continues through the season or not, only time will tell. There isn’t enough data for me to change the runs-per-game. I’m using last year’s numbers for this year, and will adjust them if necessary.
If you are using my book Betting on Major League Baseball: The Underdog Method, here are the dollar values for runs in each league. I realize that there is a DH in the National League now, but there are more runs scored in the National League. Although it’s tempting to use one figure for all of MLB, I’m going to stick to separate numbers.
For the year 2023, these are the average runs per game from 2022.
National League 4.28 runs per game
American League 4.22 runs per game
Dividing a dollar by runs per game gives us the following:
National League 23.4 cents per run or 0.234 dollars per run
American League 23.7 cents per run or 0.237 dollars per run
Good luck!
Ken Osterman