April 5, 2012

In a staggering development, The Playhouse actually won a bet Monday, cashing in fairly large on Kentucky. While the Wildcats made us sweat out a 6.5-point cover after being comfortably ahead most of the game, we'll take it any way we can get it in light of the run of losers we've backed recently.

Couple thoughts/picks/links before the Super Play of the Day...

We wrote Monday we thought Tiger Woods would win his fifth Masters this week but that the thought of playing him at +350 (Sportsbook.com) was preposterous. Again, there's absolutely no value considering the quality and size of the field coupled with the fact that he hasn't won a major since 2008.

Here's, however, what we do like:

- Lowest individual round under 65 (-110)
- Tiger Woods under 70.5 first round (-130)
- Winning score under 275.5 (-150); steep price, but we'll pay it
- Bubba Watson (-130) to beat Jason Day

The Masters, of course, isn't the only thing going on this week, as Major League Baseball also opens up, with a majority of the teams starting their seasons Thursday and Friday. We have a couple season win totals we absolutely love, plus our divisional, wild card and major award winners in our comprehensive baseball preview below -- which is neither comprehensive or, really, a preview.

Season win totals:

- Diamondbacks over 86.5
- Reds under 87.5

Division winners:

- National League: Phillies (-225), D'Backs (+200), Cardinals (+215)
- American League: Yankees (-145), Detroit (-385), Angels (-150)

Wild Cards

- NL: Giants, Marlins
- AL: Rangers, Rays

Awards

- MVPs: Robinson Cano, NYY; Justin Upton, AZ
- Cy Young: Justin Verlander, DET; Josh Johnson, MIA
- ROY: Jesus Montero, SEA; Dee Gordon, LAD

World Series

- Angels (+700) over Marlins

Some links:

Two very solid Masters previews written by some dude with the Twitter handle @fullmarx12 posted on Caesar's sportsbook director Todd Fuhrman's blog. Part one breaks down the futures market, while part two takes a look at some of the head-to-head match ups...

A really good baseball preview via The Las Vegas Sun, which takes at look at both the National and American leagues from a betting perspective...

Finally, Covers.com posted umpire over/under numbers from last season, something the general public probably never thinks about, but data bettors should know before placing any totals wager. If you don't know who's behind the plate when you make a totals play, you are doing yourself a disservice...


Super Play of the Day

Dodgers-Padres over 6