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 0.7% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 1,485 published picks, not including pending futures. And while 0.7% 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.
Doubleheader: Toronto @ Boston
I’m not sure doubleheader results are correlated (and the fact a sportsbook is allowing me to parlay these games together implies the correlation cannot be universally substantial), but even if they’re perfectly independent, this lines up as a better value play than taking each moneyline individually, and each of these games popped as a positive-return moneyline for the underdog, with Garrett Richards’s performance not that bad since the spin rate changed and Tanner Houck probably somewhat overestimated based on small-sample-size success. If there’s even the slightest correlation towards a split, perhaps from bullpen management, the value only increases.
Pick: Parlay – Boston to win Game 1, Toronto to win Game 2 (+372). Low confidence.
