The paper-USmail edition is only once a week, remember. There is no such thing as the best stat to use for predictions . There is no magic number. Many veteran subscribers like the Site3 stat. Others swear by the Homev.lefts, etc.
Statistics are snapshots of a moving target anyway.
Numbers can point us toward or away from something, but are not the entire answer. ERA doesn't tell you who is going to win because it is not supposed to . It is a measure of pitching effectiveness. Any single statistic is a shorthand way of saying something, and cannot answer everything. The money line seems confusing because many gamblers come from the pointspread games, football and hoops.