After 162 games and two rounds of divisional playoffs, it’s time for the ultimate interleague matchup of the season: the World Series. Just because both teams made the final round doesn’t mean they are equally as good. Before you starting betting your hard-earned cash on one side or the other, here’s a quick checklist of things to evaluate:

Pitching:

They say pitching wins World Series and they are correct. Now if only they could stop following around Shia LaBeouf in Eagle Eye and start depositing lots of money in my bank accounts.

Back to baseball betting, pitching is the key (most of the time) to determining the winner. There are three forms of pitching that you have to look at: starting rotation, relief pitching and closing. The team that has the better assets in all three areas is the team with the better shot to win. Straight up.

Home-Field Advantage:

Thanks to Commissioner Bud Selig, home-field advantage is now decided by the winning league in the All-Star game. But regardless of how ludicrous that is, the bottom line is that home-field advantage can come into play.

For the most part, home-field advantage doesn’t help online betting sharps out as much as it does in basketball or football so online sportsbook odds account for that. But even so, home-field advantage typically becomes pretty valuable later on in the series. When teams have to play Game Sevens on the road, that’s when they are at a disadvantage.

Hitting:

One thing that can overcome good pitching is even better hitting – imagine that. It’s important to keep in mind not only the flashy stars in each lineup and the amount of power/home runs one team can hit, but keep in mind who’s batting order is stronger from 1-9. It’s not always about cranking home runs in the postseason, it’s about making the opposing pitchers work and figuring out who can be more productive consistently throughout their batting order.

Designated Hitter:

Don’t forget that since the World Series is an interleague contest, the designated hitter becomes a factor. When the games are played in the American League representative’s stadium, then the National League’s team gets to inject another batter in their order. When the games are played in the National League representative’s stadium, the American League team has to force their pitcher to bat. In some ways, these are advantages that help the National League teams, which obviously can help online betting sharps decide which way to bet the World Series.

History:

Baseball, more than most sports, takes franchise history into account. For example, the Boston Red Sox hadn’t won the World Series in nearly a century, and it was pounded into their minds that the franchise mentally failed every time October rolled around. The Chicago Cubs are experiencing a similar curse.

Online sports betting sharps know that realistically, every situation is different and playoff failures of a prehistoric version of the Cubs have nothing to do with the current team’s struggles. Now get out there and start betting on baseball!