New MLB Wager Option - Pick Six

I've been offered a wagering option where I am able to select 3 batters during 1 day (could be from various teams/games), and they have to total a hit count of 6 or more. Payout is 6-1 on a winning wager. I'm not much into baseball, but could there be any player edge to this bet? I was looking into the stats, but it occurred to me that batters are up to the plate an undetermined amount of times. Also, a player first to bat would have a higher chance of batting an extra round than the players after him to bat. Has anyone heard of this bet? Any help or advice is appreciated.

I'm not sure that this is helpful to you, but all MLB teams over their last 7 games average 8.63 players who have had at least 2 hits in a game. Just over 1 per game. It would therefore seem to me that a 6-1 payout would be on the light side.

Really interesting bet. I don't follow baseball that closely either, but I would give it a try.

Quote: steeldco

I'm not sure that this is helpful to you, but all MLB teams over their last 7 games average 8.63 players who have had at least 2 hits in a game. Just over 1 per game. It would therefore seem to me that a 6-1 payout would be on the light side.

But the player could have 3, 4, or 5 hits as well so that would effect the odds.

You want road leadoff hitters that get a lot of hits against starting pitchers with eras in the 5s

Quote: FinsRule

You want road leadoff hitters that get a lot of hits against starting pitchers with eras in the 5s

I think if you got 3 of those you might have a tiny tiny advantage. But those situations won't be available every day.

This is an extremely well known bet and the house edge is huge at 6 to 1

You definitely want to see who the starting pitchers are, who has pitched the previous game (they won't be relieving in that game) and who the possible closers are. The Fielding Percentage of the opposing team is something to look at as well.
Lastly look at the batting average and On Base Percentage of that batter from the last few weeks.

Also do a quick check on any Injury Reports once you pick your batter.

Walks don't count as hits right? Should that be something to take into account when picking batters?

Quote: GWAE

But the player could have 3, 4, or 5 hits as well so that would effect the odds.

GWAE, good point. Correct.

Quote: hollywoodtoledo

I've been offered a wagering option where I am able to select 3 batters during 1 day (could be from various teams/games), and they have to total a hit count of 6 or more. Payout is 6-1 on a winning wager. I'm not much into baseball, but could there be any player edge to this bet? I was looking into the stats, but it occurred to me that batters are up to the plate an undetermined amount of times. Also, a player first to bat would have a higher chance of batting an extra round than the players after him to bat. Has anyone heard of this bet? Any help or advice is appreciated.

This is how I would look at it, at least, the brief version of how I would do it.

The average batter, even at the top of the lineup, is going to see just under four AB's, per game, on average. The players with the best batting averages last year were Altuve (.341), Martinez (.335) and Brantley (.327). These players saw 1,832 at-bats times over a combined 465 games, which is a good sample size because the three players were all pretty healthy as they would have played a combined 486 games had they played in every game.

Okay, now these guys saw the plate 1,832 at-bats. In these chances, the players combined for 613 hits, which makes their combined Batting Average 613/1832 = .3346069.

If we adjust the numbers just for these guys, then they saw 3.9397849 at-bats, per game, on average. Again, we're just going to round up and call it four.

So, they have twelve at-bats between them if they all play on the same day. In any one of these at-bats, the probability of them getting a hit is .3346069. You need them to get six/twelve hits, or more. If we do a binomial distribution:

http://vassarstats.net/binomialX.html

We see that the probability of six (or more) hits out of 12 is: 0.180283073172, therefore:

(0.180283073172*6) - (1-0.180283073172) = 0.2619815122

It would seem, then, that based on the averages for these three players, you would have a good bet on average to always choose these three players. A very good bet, in fact.

BoulderDamIt made some excellent points that should be considered when deciding whether or not to make this bet on a particular day. I agree with everything, except I'd look at batting average over more than the last few weeks and...if I were going to limit what I am looking at to a few weeks...I wouldn't look at OBP at all because that includes Walks, so that really doesn't tell you what you need to know.

For example, if you look at Altvue's stats for 2014 v. so far this year, his OBP is .003 higher this year though his batting average is .013 lower so far this year. Just means he's walking a lot, which he is, last year he walked once per 18.3333 at-bats and this year he has one walk for every 11.416666 at-bats. I know it would be more proper to use per plate appearances, but I don't feel like it right now.

I would just look at the overall stats for any group of three players, as I did above, and then, like BoulderDamIt said, the opposing pitching for that day as well as the overall fielding percentage of the opponent.

Finally, because I'm such a nice guy, I looked at this bet for April 2015 if all three of the aforementioned players played on the same day: You would have lost this bet on 4/6 (2 Hits), 4/10 (5 Hits), 4/18 (1 Hit), 4/20 (1 Hit), 4/21 (1 Hit), 4/22 (2 Hits), 4/24 (5 Hits), 4/26 (4 Hits), 4/27 (3 Hits), and 4/29 (2 Hits) for a total of 10 Losses; however, you would have won on 4/19 (7 Hits), 4/25 (8 Hits), 4/28 (6 Hits) and 4/30 (8 Hits) for a total of 4 wins and 24 units.

Ultimately, you would have won 24 units and lost ten units for a profit of 14 units in the month of April. Limited sample size, of course, but if you want me to do more than that, we'll have to discuss an hourly rate. ;)