While it’s the norm for baseball bettors to pore over the almost never-ending stats regarding teams and players, one person went a step further by analyzing barometric pressure.
Jack Andrews spoke to Unabated recently and explained how he discovered in the early noughties that sportsbooks weren’t really taking into account weather forecasts when setting odds, especially for home run markets, which could be significantly impacted by adverse conditions.
He dived into the world of physics to figure out how air pressure, altitude, and weather can impact the flight of a baseball. He was able to use historic data to build a model to analyze any potential links between weather conditions and baseball games. While humidity turned out to have no statistical relevance, barometric pressure did.
on days when pressure was lower, the air would be more akin to high-altitude games.
It was already known that thinner air meant that the ball would travel further, which led to more powerful hits at stadiums at altitude such as the Colorado Rockies ballpark. Andrews made the link that barometric pressure is similar to air density, which means that on days when pressure was lower, the air would be more akin to high-altitude games.
To get the most accurate data, he used an air density formula that pilots consider before departing. His impressive win percentage on baseball totals based on this approach was around 60% in 2014 before sportsbooks and other bettors became aware of the approach and the edge was lost.
