The World Baseball Classic

The World Baseball Classic begins on Friday in Toyko, (Thursday night in US because of the time difference). There are four main favorites for this event: USA, Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Puerto Rico.

World Baseball Classic Win Odds 9/2

Starting Pitching: Johan Santana is one of the best pitchers in the MLB along with Carlos Zambrano. They have a great squad including Gustavo Chacin, Freddy Garcia, Victor Zambrano, Kelvim Escobar, Tony Armas.

The Venezuelans do not have a lot of big name relief pitchers, Jorge Julio and Rafael Betancourt being the exceptions. So some of the excess starters will pitch in relief. Don't Francisco Rodriguez who is one of the best closers out there.

Weaknesses:

Venezuela has a lot of slick fielding infielders such as Alex Gonzalez, Carlos Guillen and Omar Vizquel, but there are not a lot of power hitters in the group except for Miguel Cabrera. Mora will not play in the tournament, making where he would play a non-issue.

With Mora out - either Juan Rivera or Endy Chavez will be forced to play center. Rivera is more suited defensively for a corner outfield position, while Chavez is not much of a hitter.

The Lowdown:

The odds for Venezuela were originally 9/1.

Most of the reason was that people looked at the Venezuelan pitching staff and realized that they are capable of shutting down the high powered offenses of the US and Dominican Republic.

Venezuela have also just won the Caribbean World Series and while that event energized the entire country, it will be even bigger for them to win the WBC. They share the same opening group as the Dominican Republic.

Venezuela has already shown that it can beat the Dominican Republic - so with luck they will not be intmidated.

College Basketball: Michigan State at Iowa

Big ten teams clash tonight, as Michigan State attempt to overcome their road opponents in the form of Iowa. The Hawkeyes are hot and playing some of their best basketball of the season. They will look to gain revenge for an earlier thirty point road loss to the Spartans. The game can be seen on ESPN at 9:00pm EST.

Michigan State is an impressive 18-6, but only 6-4 in the Big 10. On paper one looks at the Spartans and wonders how they are having such a hard time - In Paul Davis, Maurice Ager, Shannon Brown, the Spartans have players each averaging over eighteen points per game - yet they are just 2-4 in the conference. The '10' is notoriously merciless on road teams but nevertheless one expects better from them.

Iowa is 19-6 and has been the upstart of the Big 10 with an 8-3 record. They have a small lead over Ohio State in the conference. Although the Hawkeyes lost 51-48 at Northwestern last week, it was a game that they should have won. However, they did come back with an 70-67 win at Indiana on over the weekend. Iowa are unbeaten at home and are 5-0 in the Big 10.

Iowa's scorers are G. Brunner, A. Haluska, J. Horner. Combined, these guys are dangerous, averaging fourteen points per game - however they are perhaps not as well equipped as their opponents.

Michigan State is scoring about ten points more per game than Iowa, but also gives up ten more per game than Iowa. This is a big game for both teams. Iowa wants to keep the conference lead, while Michigan State is right back in the race if they can snatch a victory.

Michigan State has perhaps been getting too much respect based on their level of talent, but they have been poor on the road. We'll have to wait and see if that changes tonight at Iowa.

Go to our college basketball point spreads page for the latest odds on this game.

Super Bowl XL

The Pittsburgh line is shortening, on the spread they were at -3.5 and are now generally -4. In one way it isn't surprising since most of the country will be on Pittsburgh, but it is very rare that a team that is favorite for the Super Bowl owns a worse regular season record than their opponents. Since 1970, when the leagues came together, it has happened only a handful of times.

Here they are:

Super Bowl V, 1971: Baltimore (+1) v Dallas

The Ravens were 11-2-1 in the regular season, while Dallas were 10-4. But Baltimore was a small dog against a Cowboys team in its first Super Bowl appearance. Baltimore won 16-13 in a poor game.

Super Bowl VII, 1973: Miami (+2) v Washington

This famous Dolphins team went 14-0 in the regular season. The Redskins were 11-3. In the AFC championship game Miami struggled to defeat Pittsburgh, 21-17, while Washington cruised to a 26-3 victory over Dallas in the NFC championship game. Yet it was amazing that Miami still went into the Super Bowl an underdog. This may have been partly because of the championship game against the Steelers but also because they had not faced a particulary tough schedule that season, with some easy opponents. The Dolphins triumphed 14-7 and have become legends in their time as the only team to have a perfect season.

Super Bowl XII, 1988: Washington (+3) v Denver

The Redskins were 11-4 during the regular season, with Denver 10-4-1, virtually identical records. The Broncos were in their second straight Super Bowl, but had been hammered by the Giants 39-20 in the previous Bowl. Yet Denver were favored by 3 probably because oddsmakers thought that John Elway was a better coach than Washington’s Doug Williams. The Redskins murdered the Broncos 42 to 10.

Super Bowl XIII, 1989: Cincinnati (+7) v San Francisco

The Bengals stood at 12-4 for the regular season, while the 49ers struggled at 10-6. The 49ers made the playoffs despite a three way tie in the NFC West division. SF won 20-16 on a fantastic last minute drive led by Joe Montana.

Super Bowl XXXVII, 2003: Tampa Bay (+3.5) v Oakland

Tampa was 12-4 in the regular season with Oakland at 11-5. Oakland was favored in this game as they had the leagues most effective offense. The Bucs team was defensive minded and destroyed Oakland 48-21. Gruden had coached Oakland the year before.

So where is the common thread? Yep, five times the team with the better regular season record was the underdog in the Super Bowl, and five times out of five that team has covered the spread. Four out five won straight up.

A few touts will jump at this one - of course it means nothing. Had the number of times that this had occurred been 55 instead of 5 - well then you certainly would sit up and take note. The sample is still too small from a betting perspective.

It's a fun angle though!