Category Archives: Sports

News, Punting, Sports

Gelding’s hot tips for 4 October 2014 at Flemington

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Mar 6 2011 010The Gelding’s attention turns to Flemington this Saturday in what he describes as ‘a very hard day to tip a winner’. That being said he is confident that the selections will provide value for punters.

As always, the bets are on an each way and all up basis.

Flemington

Race 3 Horse 3 – Who Shot the Barman
Race 5 Horse 11 – Bounding
Race 6 Horse 9 – Maastricht
Race 7 Horse 6 – Silent Achiever (for the ladies at the Tennis club)
Race 8 Horse 4 – Politeness (also for the ladies at the Tennis club)

Good luck and good punting!

The Gelding

News, Sports

MLB playoff moneyball selections

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baseball16With the MLB playoffs having commenced, I thought it might be interesting to re-visit team payrolls and look at the teams still vying for a World Series spot.

The division pennant winners (with 2014 payroll in brackets) were:

American League

East – Baltimore Orioles ($107.5 million)
Central – Detroit Tigers ($162.3 million)
West – LA Angels ($155.7 million) * best record in the AL for wins/losses
Wild card entry – Kansas City Royals ($92.1 million) and Oakland A’s ($83.5 million)

National League

East – Washington Nationals ($134.7 million) * best record in the NL for wins/losses
Central – St Louis Cardinals ($111.1 million)
West – LA Dodgers ($235.3 million)
Wild card entry – San Francisco Giants ($154.2 million) and Pittsburgh Pirates ($78.2 million)

The American League has already played its Wild Card game with the Royals coming out on top over Billy Beane’s A’s. The National League plays today with the Giants and Pirates playing in a winner take all game to advance in the playoffs.

The ALDS sees the Orioles play the Tigers while the Angels take on the Royals.

In the NLDS, the Cardinals play the Dodgers while the Nationals play the winner of the Pirates/Giants game.

Going on strength of payroll alone, it should be a Dodgers v Tigers World Series, however, given many teams with high payroll haven’t even made the playoffs that clearly isn’t the sole determining factor.

I likebaseball17 the Royals to continue their fairy tale run to play the Nationals in the decider.

One thing for certain, Billy Beane knows that even $83.5 million per year wasn’t enough to get the A’s over the line in 2014!

News, Sports

AFL theory of equalisation a myth after free agency!

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footballAfter writing yesterday’s piece on AFL broadcast rights, I gave some thought to free agency, the trade period and whether the current AFL system is equitable to all clubs. Most stories that have been in the media recently talk of lower ranked clubs like Melbourne, Western Bulldogs and GWS losing players to the top dogs of the competition in Hawthorn, North Melbourne, Sydney or Geelong.

It seems most players want to go to a club that can challenge for a flag immediately or in the not too distant future. Take for example Mitch Clarke – he wants out of the Demons to go to Geelong (a usual top four finisher) and James Frawley appears certain to also leave the Demons to go to…..well you take your pick of the top clubs. His name has been mentioned in the same sentence as Hawthorn (this year’s premiers in case you missed it), Geelong and Fremantle. Haven’t heard any rumors that he was considering St Kilda, Western Bulldogs, GWS or staying at Melbourne.

What this means is that the stronger clubs get stronger as they pick off the good talent from the weaker clubs….and we know what that means. The weaker clubs get weaker and so the cycle continues. How is this different to the pre-draft days of the 1970’s and 1980’s when the size of the cheque book dictated the strength of the team and where you finished on the ladder. Seems to me we have replaced one bad system with another and it will only get worse as the years go by.crowd

Speaking of broadcast rights…..if the AFL becomes too much of a lop sided competition, I don’t know that it will foster interest in the game, get bums on seats and people watching on TV, all of which affects the amount of money the broadcasters are willing to pay for the content.

I’d suggest this should be a priority issue for the AFL to address.

News, Sports

AFL, broadcast rights, innovation!

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mcgEven though the current AFL $1.25 billion broadcast rights deal does not expire until 2016, what better time to pump up the rights discussion than after an AFL Grand Final? With two years left on the deal, the subject appears in the media today with ‘talks on a new deal to open within weeks’.

That may be the case, but with the hammering the AFL got from diminishing crowds this season, I for one would be wary of how much money I’d invest in a product that is on the nose with a lot of fans. Add to that a schedule that throws up less than interesting contests ie. GWS v Gold Coast, GWS v Melbourne, Melbourne v anyone, 7.00pm matches on a Sunday, 7.00pm matches on Monday and I’d suggest that the dollars may not be there for a deal as big as the AFL expects (at least $3 billion over 10 years).

The AFL says that they have listened to the fans complaints about scheduling and the cost to families of attending games. I’ll am keen to see just what changes are actually made.

If the AFL want an increase then they should consider ‘innovation’ to help things along. As a suggestion, why not introduce conference style play similar to the NFL. Not only would this spice things up but would also solve some of the inequities of the current fixture. This could be accomplished by placing one team from each of SA, WA, NSW and Qld in separate conferences and then splitting the ten from Victoria between the two so that each conference has nine teams. A team would play each team in its own conference twice (16 matches) and each team in the other conference once making a season total of 25 matches.

The top four teams in each conference would progress to the final series with 1 v 4 and 2 v 3 playing in each conference, the winners of those games each playing in a preliminary final and then the winning team from each conference plays in the grand final.

The extra ‘productivity’ by the players (3 extra matches in a season) would justify the ever increasing salaries the players are receiving.

News, Sports

Wednesday rant – MLB and buying wins

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baseballpicIn what endeavour would you be responsible for spending in excess of $203 million, have little or nothing to show for it results wise and still be in a job? In baseball that’s where. How does Brian Cashman, General Manager and Senior Vice President of the New York Yankees retain his job? The Yankees, who have all but been eliminated from post season play, have currently won 81 games. When viewed against their payroll (second highest in MLB), they pay about $2.5 million per win. The concept of ‘buying wins’ was adopted by Billy Beane and brought to the public’s attention in the book and film, Moneyball. By comparison, the other New York team, the Mets get better value for money as they pay about $1.17 million per win spending less in payroll and winning nearly as many games as the Yankees.

Probably the best result in 2014 has been returned by the Pittsburgh Pirates, who baseball17have qualified for the post season winning 86 games spending $908,000 per win. As for the Oakland A’s, they spend a little more than the Pirates at $970,000 per win and are still in the wildcard chase. The bottom line is getting value for money and the Yankees haven’t whilst the Pirates and A’s have. Maybe Mr Cashman and the Yankees need to re-think the strategy.

News, Sports

Professor’s Tuesday rant – EPL managers on the hot seat

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man utdWho will be the first manager sacked in the Premier League this season? Louis van Gaal, head man at Manchester United must be a short priced favourite and we are only a few weeks into the campaign. After a 5-3 loss at Leicester City on the weekend (after Man U led 3-1) and sitting mid table with five points from five games, it is only a matter of time if results continue to go badly. How long before the Board bring back Sir Alex ?

Also on the hot seat must be Alan Pardew at Newcastle Steve-Bruce-and-Alan-PardewUnited. Lamenting at the foot of the table, things will need to change really quickly at St James’ Park for Pardew to hold his job! Hull City manager, Steve Bruce has already been tipped to slip into the Newcastle job with Alan Shearer as his off sider.

Whilst I think Van Gaal has the hotter seat given the expectations at Old Trafford, that Newcastle sources today said “the manager’s job was completely safe” must have Pardew feeling very uneasy.

News, Punting, Sports

The Gelding’s red hot selections for Caulfield on 20 September 2014

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MarkThe Gelding’s attention is on his home track at Caulfield tomorrow and after last week’s stellar day on the punt he is primed and ready to go with some value bets that pack a punch!

As always the bets are on an each way and all up basis.

Caulfield

Race 5 Horse 8 – Spirit of Heaven
Race 6 Horse 1 – Spillway
Race 7 Horse 10 – Silent Achiever (for the ladies at the Tennis club)
Race 8 Horse 1 – Samaready (also for the ladies at the Tennis club)
Race 9 Horse 5 – Trust in a Gust

You can hear the Gelding discuss the results with the Professor and the panel this Sunday at 11.00am on Sportzfan Radio live from the Southern Football League Division 1 Grand Final at Springvale oval broadcasting on 88.3 Southern FM.

Good luck and good punting!

The Gelding

News, Punting, Sports

Gelding’s red hot tips for 13 September 2014

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Mar 13 2011 026The Gelding’s attention is on Flemington tomorrow after an ‘ordinary’ outing at Moonee Valley last Saturday. What might have been if lady luck had of shone just a little bit more in his direction. The confidence is still there though!!!!

As always the bets are on an each way and all up basis.

Flemington

Race 4 Horse2 – Chivalry
Race 5 Horse 1 – Commanding Jewel
Race 6 Horse5 – Rich Enuff
Race 7 Horse 9 – Dissident (for the ladies at the Tennis club)
Race 8 Horse 5 – El Roca (also for the ladies at the Tennis club)

Good luck and good punting!

The Gelding

News, Sports

Friday musing – AFL, Finals Footy……

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Chris Barwin HillsWell the footy finals are now underway and Essendon was eliminated in the first week after giving up a five goal lead early in the third quarter. A Richmond supporter posed the question to me on Monday, “Is it better to cough up a lead and lose as Essendon did or be blown out of the water in the first quarter and have no chance of winning as Richmond did?”. Whilst it was very disappointing to give up that lead, I must say it is a lot better to be in the game with a chance and the Bombers were still in the lead with five minutes to go, so give me the Essendon scenario over the Richmond scenario any day.

I thought after watching Geelong on Friday night that the winner of the North Melbourne/Essendon game would have a great chance of knocking them off the following week. Geelong dropped marks at both ends of the ground, missed simple targets with their disposal and could not lay a tackle. If North can match them early they are every chance to win and get the chance to play the Swans in Sydney. Geelong won 17 games this year, but probably played like a team who should only have won 13-14 games so they are about on par with North in my opinion.

With the other game I have been on Fremantle all year so I have to stick with them, however, Port Adelaide could not have been more impressive last week and they have a bevy of mercurial players that can really do some magic on the footy field. They got close to Freo recently in Perth and Ballantyne is not playing and Port have no injury concerns of any note. The big difference is that Nat Fyffe did not play in the recent game and in my opinion and the opinion of the other players in the AFL, he is just about the best player in the competition so he will make a significant difference and swing an even game in the favour of Freo.

In reference to my “musing ” last week, it was gratifying to note that the players voted Zach Merrett into equal fourth place on the Best First Year Player list having not secured any votes in the NAB Rising Star. As you may have worked out I am a bit of a wrap for him and I think he acquitted himself pretty well in his first final last Saturday night.

Have a great weekend!