It’s been awhile since we authored a volume in this series. However more anticipated than a Harry Potter novel, the Tid-Bets return to take a look at various sports handicapping and betting issues.

How Do Handicappers Work Overtime?

CBS announcer Gary Danielson accurately observed how college football overtimes can greatly distort statistics. From a handicapping standpoint, this is certainly true for those who use deceptive rankings or points per game statistics. Luckily sharp bettors do not or they are weighted very lightly.

The main statistics that we use: yards per rush, yards per pass, and yards per play on offense and defense compared to the cumulative average of their opponents are not debased by overtime play. The same is true for ace football handicapper Mike Godsey of GodsTips.com who utilizes net yard advantage/disadvantage cumulative statistics.

We’ve explained in previous articles why straight up wins and losses, point margin, and offensive and defensive rankings are the most popular choices of square players planning their own sportsbook death sentence.

“If a team wins by eight points in four overtimes, it looks the same as an eight-point win in regulation,” says Mike Godsey, referring to those who use the above fatal stats.

“But if the losing team is stopped on the three-yard line trying to tie the game, it is very much accounted for in our statistics,” brags Godsey.

Godsey adds that while as a fan he despises the fact that teams start 25 yards from pay dirt; it is built-in insurance that the more reliable numbers don’t get too distorted in overtime.

Will the Pitching and Defense Cliché Ever Die?

In 2007, no surprise, seven of the top eight offenses based on a team’s on base percentage made the playoffs. Two of the three teams that finished with 70 wins or less, Pittsburgh and Baltimore, ranked in the top five in defense, ahead of six of the eight playoff teams. And six of the top 10 pitching teams missed the playoffs.

This is on the heels of St. Louis winning the World Series with Chris Carpenter and a cast of rejects on their pitching staff. Their closer was a converted rookie starting pitcher. The year before the White Sox had a good starting pitching staff and an abysmal bullpen. In recent years, Arizona won with Johnson and Schilling and the rest of the staff worth killing.

The Toronto Blue Jays this most recent campaign had the best pitching staff in MLB with A.J. Burnett, Roy Halladay, Dustin McGowan, Shaun Marcum and Jesse Litsch. All they did was finish 13 games out of first place.

This year the Colorado Rockies enter the World Series having won an historic 21-of-22 games. The ace of their staff is Jeff Francis, a very solid pitcher indeed. Problem is, he’d be the No. 3 starter on the Atlanta Braves, a team that the media said failed to make the playoffs because of lack of pitching. But not to worry, rounding out the Rockies pitching staff is Ubadlo Jimenez and Franklin Morales. Combined, they have seven career wins under their belt. Yes, combined they have seven more wins at the Major League level than I do.

Pitching and defense wins in the media, but the teams with the best clutch hitting are the squads that professional gamblers laugh with all the way to the bank.

ESPN Fantasy Football Simulations a Tool for Proposition Bettors

Over the last several years, online gamblers have been able to bet on the production of individual players in their respective sports. An elite gambler in fantasy football betting is Mike Snow of BettorsAdvice.com.

He says there is no better starting point than the ESPN fantasy football projections. “We of course make adjustments for injuries, but contrasting the player proposition odds to the ESPN simulations has proven to be great foundation in fantasy NFL betting.”

Lower betting limits make it more challenging for sharp players to clean house on the sportsbooks, but Snow says some of the highest return on investments have been in betting NFL player propositions.

Joe Duffy’s sports betting selections are at www.GodsTips.com He is former General Manager of the Freescoreboard scorephone network and CEO of OffshoreInsiders.com, the premier hub of world-class handicappers.