MLB Trends and Odds: How To Handle Betting On The Oakland Athletics

A Season in Shambles: An Overview of the Oakland Athletics’ 2023 Season

To say that the 2023 MLB season has been a disaster for the Oakland Athletics — on and off the field — would be an understatement of the highest degree. As of Friday morning, they were 12-46 and are already 24.5 games out of 1st place in the AL West. Plus, they’ve played their entire season under the now-crystal-clear understanding that the franchise’s future is in Las Vegas, not Oakland. When you couple the loss with the organization’s obvious desire to move from the Bay Area as soon as possible, you get dreadful attendance for a really bad team.

The Downfall: An Unfortunate Start to the Season

Funnily enough, the A’s won their season opener against the Los Angeles Angels to go undefeated 1-0 in March. But, they went 5-23 in April and then 6-23 in May to find themselves in their current situation. With that said, though, Oakland is coming off a nice series win over the NL East-leading Atlanta Braves which snapped an 11-game skid. Sure it’s just one series but, if MLB trends and odds tell us anything, that could be a sign that the A’s are finally going to shift from “all-time bad” to “regular bad.”

Starting pitcher Paul Blackburn is finally off the injured list and surprise sluggers Ryan Noda and Brent Rooker have shown that they might be more than just flashes in the pan. Lineup mainstay Seth Brown is still working himself back from injury but he provides another power threat for a lineup that is 12th in the AL in home runs. The upcoming MLB schedule also could bode well for Oakland as the A’s get ready to start a nine-game road trip against the light-hitting Miami Marlins and Milwaukee Brewers as well as the slumping Pittsburgh Pirates who went 8-18 in May.

It would be premature to consider any opponent a good matchup for Oakland but with the A’s having a team ERA of 6.63 — nearly 1.4 runs higher than that of the next-worst team — run prevention is the most important thing for Mark Kotsay’s club. The A’s held Atlanta’s high-powered offense to seven runs in three games, in large part due to nice starts from Blackburn and JP Sears, but usually Oakland has been getting crushed early and often by opposing offenses.

So it’s not a surprise that the over has hit in almost 55% of Oakland’s games, one of the highest marks in the league, even with the A’s not being a particularly potent offensive team. Surprisingly, though, the baseball odds haven’t adjusted much in terms of over/under involving Oakland. For example, the over/under is only 8.5 runs for the A’s’ game on Friday against the Marlins even with Shintaro Fujinami — and his 12.00 ERA — serving as an opener for Oakland. On paper at least, the over looks like a great pick there.

That could be a sign that Vegas thinks the A’s are bound to start pitching like an MLB-caliber club. Historically speaking, the MLB trends and odds indicate that Oakland can’t possibly stay this bad. The A’s are on pace for 33.5 wins which, even if rounded up to 34, would make them the worst team in MLB’s modern era (which began in 1901). It’s just hard to believe that Oakland won’t go on some kind of “run” to bring the A’s back toward respectability in some way. There isn’t much historical precedent for this kind of loss by a non-expansion team.

Take Oakland’s record in day games, for example. The A’s are somehow 1-23 when they play during the day which is, obviously, by far the worst such mark in baseball. In night games, Oakland is a much more reasonable 11-23. That could be random statistical variance or it could be actually significant. The good news? Teams play much more often at night than they do during the day so maybe the A’s can gain some ground there as the season progresses.

Also, the A’s have played a particularly difficult schedule. They’ve had 46 games against teams currently over .500, the most in baseball so far, and Oakland is 8-38 in those games. Against below-.500 teams, the A’s are 4-8. To be sure, that’s not a good record but it shows that they haven’t been nearly as dreadful when playing other bad teams. The AL West having four good teams inflates the numbers a bit but, with the balanced schedule, the A’s will face easier competition going forward.

Even the A’s’ BABIP (batting average on balls in play) is an abysmal .272, the second-lowest mark in baseball. Considering that MLB’s league-average BABIP is well over .300 and BABIP is generally considered to be a statistic that evens out over the course of a season, the MLB trends and odds suggest that Oakland is due for some serious positive offensive regression.

A Ray of Hope: A Look Ahead for the A’s

The moral of the story: The A’s are bad but they probably aren’t as bad as they’ve been through 50+ games. They aren’t suddenly going to become a juggernaut but, as their recent series against the Braves showed, this team can win games; it just needs a few more things to go its way (and to not give up as many home runs).

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