Editor’s Note: For about two and a half years now, Joe has been publishing picks here and back at All Things NIT, our former site. There have been moments of elation (the Nationals winning the 2019 World Series, the first two months of the 2019-20 college basketball season). There have been moments of frustration (the Dodgers’ 2020 NLCS comeback, the second two months of the 2019-20 college basketball season). Overall, the results have been positive, with an average return on investment, per pick, of 1.0% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 1,433 published picks, not including pending futures. And while 1.0% might not sound enormous, you can do a lot with it over time.
Use these picks at your own risk. Only you are responsible for any money you lose, and you should not bet more than you can afford to lose. If you have a gambling problem, get help.
Lines for these come from the Vegas consensus or the closest approximation available at the time picks are written, unless otherwise noted. FanGraphs is heavily used in making MLB picks.
Just a future today. Intrigued by the Royals moneyline, scared off by Brad Keller’s xERA. For the future, odds come from Bovada due to the lack of a consistently current/accurate Vegas consensus online.
NL Central
We’re already in on the Brewers (three units, effectively +210 odds) and the Cubs (one unit, +1100 odds), so this basically gives us a bet against the Cardinals winning the NL Central. To be clear, the Reds might be sunk. They might fall apart. Their division championship probability might be zero by the end of June and they might sell everybody off at the deadline. But also, they’ve got a manageable/opportunity-offering June schedule (eleven against the Brewers and Cardinals combined, tough series in San Diego but not a ton else that screams “losses”), Mike Moustakas shouldn’t be out too long, and these are 16-to-1 odds in a steaming pile of dung that is calling itself the National League Central. The scenario in which Luis Castillo gets right, everyone else in the division muddles, Joey Votto and Moustakas return and the Reds grit themselves back into contention feels like better than a 1-in-17 chance, and the numbers (FanGraphs playoff probabilities, namely) love it, which reinforces the legitimacy of that feeling.
We’d need the Cardinals to fall to something like +250 to corner this market, but that too isn’t impossible. The Brewers are still the reasonable favorite, especially with Miles Mikolas possibly done for the year and the Cardinals having to play the might-be-decent Cubs more than Milwaukee does the rest of the way.
Pick: Cincinnati to win +1600. Low confidence.
