About baseball betting on totals:
bets on total of baseball matches #1
matches totals in baseball betting #2

The first and the second key factors are described here:
how to win in baseball betting #3
4 factors for your baseball betting strategy #4

3. Weather: This factor separates the professionals from the amateurs.

If you do not check the weather before to bet, you lose one of the main “elements” of the game. The wind, which blows towards the outfield, may change the pitcher’s fly-ball into his home-run, and can greatly influence on the result, when you bet on the totals.

4. Other baseball betting factors.

When choosing your bets look for any factors, which can influence the game even a bit.

Journeys/flights: In your analysis do not forget about the teams, which played an evening/night game in the previous day, and have to fly for the next game in the evening or in the early morning. An example of the season in 2003: Baltimore played a night game in California, meanwhile Texas, the next Orioles’ opponent, received some time for rest. Baltimore was on a plane, when the team arrived to Texas at 5:30. Later on the same day, the well-rested Texas’ team easily won the tired Orioles’ team.

The long away games: I always pay attention to the stakes on teams, which has just returned from long away series of matches, and play its first home game. In such situations the team needs some time for acclimatization after the tiring travel.

Emotions: look for the teams, which open the game series versus their opponents.

Soon how to bet strategically…

On the other hand, usually the most common used method of defense evaluating is a notion, which is very close to the idea of “Fielding Percentage” and its individual components, but they, unfortunately, are not adequate at all. “Fielding Percentage” is the total number of Assists (A) and Putouts (PO) of a player (team) divided into Assists (A), Putouts (PO) and Errors (Е), made by the same player (team).

For instance:

If Miguel Tejada has 256 putouts, 473 assists and 20 errors, his “Fielding percentage” is equal to:
.973 ((256+473)/(256+473+20))

This kind of evaluation is so imperfect that you can write a multivolume treatise about its restrictions. To save your time, let’s describe only some main items.

Our first problem concerning “Fielding percentage” is that this index by its nature is subjective. It means that only one official referee can define whether the players should be blamed for an unsuccessful attack. Two different referees would be able to give two different inferences about the same game situation, only because of their subjective interpretations. Very often “Fielding percentage” imposes a penalty on the players, which have more wide playing range.

Let’s concretize the last thought. Imagine for a moment that a hitball is between short-stop (SS) and the second base (2B). In perspective, not to spoil the statistics of “Fielding percentage”, the short-stop would theoretically allow the ball to play easily, instead of to make an attempt “to dive” for it and then to make a bad throw. In the game it is obviously that the bigger sector is “protected” by a player, the better player is.

But in fact «Fielding percentage» can indicate the player who has a worse playing range, but the better position in the stats list. I call it a fruitless effort.