Rangers sign Stetter, Green to minor league contracts

Baseball Betting Lines

01/23/2012 - Arlington, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Texas Rangers have signed pitchers Mitch Stetter and Sean Green to minor league contracts which include invitations to the club's spring training camp.

Stetter, a 2003 draft pick of the Brewers, made just 16 appearances in 2011, posting a 5.14 earned run average with seven strikeouts in seven innings. The left-handed hurler spent most of the season on the disabled list due to a left hip labral irritation.

For his career, Stetter has seen action in 132 games, all with Milwaukee, holding an ERA of 4.08 and 8-2 mark in 86 innings of work.

Green played in 14 games for the Brewers last year, going 0-1 with a 5.40 ERA in 11 2/3 innings. He spent most of 2011 with the club's Triple-A affiliate in Nashville, posting a 3.91 ERA in 33 appearances.

Green has spent six seasons in the majors with the Mariners, Mets, and Brewers, going 10-12 in 264 games with an ERA of 4.41.

Wwnascar Baseball Betting News

<< Benfica, FC Porto maintain unbeaten records
Benfica, Portugal (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Oscar Cardozo scored his Portuguese Liga- high 12th goal and unbeaten Benfica maintained its cushion atop the table over fellow unbeaten FC Porto with a 3-1 win Sunday over Gil Vicente. Cardozo opened the

<< Villarreal tops Sporting Gijon to end winless skid
Villarreal, Spain (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Villarreal claimed three big points on Monday at the Madrigal with a 3-0 victory over Sporting Gijon which snaps a six-game winless streak for the club. Villarreal had dropped four of its last si

<< Stars activate Ribeiro, place Morrow on IR
Frisco, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Dallas Stars on Monday activated forward Mike Ribeiro from injured reserve and placed captain Brenden Morrow on IR. Ribeiro has missed the last seven games with an upper-body injury, and had been pla

<< Banaszak is Robert Morris' coach-in-waiting
Moon Township, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Robert Morris University football program is naming assistant John Banaszak as the head coach-in-waiting to replace Joe Walton after the 2013 season. Joe Walton, 76, is the only head coach in the prog

<< Yankees send Montero to M's for Pineda
Bronx, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The trade between the New York Yankees and the Seattle Mariners involving young hurler Michael Pineda and blue-chip prospect Jesus Montero became official Monday. The Yankees acquired the 6-foot-7 Pineda and

Selig unanimously awarded extension through 2014 >>
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - MLB club owners have completed a unanimous vote to extend commissioner Bud Selig's contract through the 2014 season. A 10-day voting period, which commenced at the quarterly owners meetings on January

Padres give P Richard one-year deal >>
San Diego, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The San Diego Padres have signed left-handed pitcher Clayton Richard to a one-year contract. Richard went 5-9 with a 3.88 ERA in 18 starts last year before undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery in l

Ovechkin suspended for three games >>
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Washington Capitals forward Alex Ovechkin was suspended for three games without pay by the National Hockey League on Monday. Ovechkin left his feet to deliver a high, hard check to the head of Pittsbu

Blue Jays sign INF Vizquel >>
Toronto, ON (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Toronto Blue Jays and infielder Omar Vizquel have agreed to terms on a contract. Vizquel confirmed the signing on his Twitter account and it's being reported that the contract is for one year. T

Bruins G Thomas declines White House invite >>
Boston, MA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Though the rest of his teammates and other members of the Stanley Cup-champion Boston Bruins attended a reception in their honor by President Barack Obama on Monday, goaltender Tim Thomas decline

Sportsbook Betting Lines

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.

Why Sports Betting Lines Change

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.”

To visit this internet sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your sports betting needs and World Series odds.