While we should never place a wager based solely on the home plate umpire, knowing who is behind the plate can be an added filter when investing in MLB totals. Many umpires have tendencies that can be exploited given the right match up, weather and park.
In general, umpires with a tight strike zone are over-friendly while umps with large strike zones are beneficial to unders. MLB uses a 4 man umpiring crew for every series and usually the assignments aren’t announced until a few hours before the first game of a new series. After the first game, the umpires rotate clockwise for the remaining games of that series (2nd base ump → 1st base ump → home plate). This is one reason why lines will sometimes move once the crew is announced prior to a new series.
Obviously, the sample size is small for the 2017 season but here are the top 10 umpires for going over the total this season:
And here are the top 10 umpires for staying under the total this season:
With a simple Google search, you can dig deeper into umpires’ historical betting trends but knowing the umpire’s tendencies is a great filter to add when handicapping totals. Incorporating that with traditional filters as well as using ZCode’s tools like the Totals Predictor can help you become a sharp bettor in MLB. Good luck!
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