Editor’s Note: Since November 2018, Joe has been publishing picks here and back at All Things NIT, our former site. Overall, the results have been mixed, with an average return on investment, per pick, of -3.6% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 2,792 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of 0.3% across 762 completed high and medium-confidence picks.
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. For futures bets and motorsports bets, odds are taken from the better option between Bovada and BetOnline as our best approximation of the Vegas consensus, which isn’t currently/accurately available online. FanGraphs is heavily used in making MLB picks.
NASCAR and F1 bets below, but first, our MLB futures, part of our ongoing effort to resurrect our all-time average ROI by playing to our strength. The regular season portion of the futures is, after today, 10% complete, with 52 of our 520 units bet (we have another 520 set aside for October, and in case we need or want to throw around some big hedges).
AL West
This is so narrowly valuable. Hardly valuable at all, really. But it’s valuable, it’s a low price, and it leaves the Astros winning the West as still a profitable path within that specific market. Breadth is a big part of our goal here, because breadth affords flexibility down the line. We’ll add this, and in doing it we likely get to close the book on the Angels for a week or two (a little meta talk about the portfolio: We’re settling into a pretty clear valuable vs. not valuable dichotomy, with HOU/NYY/TOR valuable in the AL, ATL/NYM/SD valuable in the NL, and our battle lines likely soon drawn accordingly until bigger things happen and shake up everyone’s positions).
Pick: Anaheim to win +325. Medium confidence.
NLCS
It’s the highest-value play available, and while we have a division future and a World Series future already down on these guys, we have to triple up on somebody if we aren’t going to go to straight hedging, and it’s April, so we aren’t going to go to straight hedging.
Pick: Atlanta to win +700. Medium confidence.
Formula 1: Emilia Romagna Grand Prix
Are these reasonable odds? To be honest, we aren’t sure, but it’s hard to see any justifiable reason to bet on anyone but Verstappen at this point. He’s on the pole, he won last year driving away, and nobody else besides maybe Lando Norris has a comparable combination of success here and strength in qualifying. We’ll wait for Norris to show he can win before we try to balance him against a +130 bet. Just a straight play—Verstappen vs. the Field.
Pick: Max Verstappen to win +130. Low confidence.
NASCAR Cup Series: GEICO 500 (Talladega)
We’re going algorithmic for this one, looking at top fives at Daytona and Talladega since the 2016 season began and adjusting from there for the probability of a crash taking out an individual driver. The idea is that these drivers, who’ve been in the top five a lot relative to their odds for Sunday, are the best at surviving superspeedway racing and leaving themselves in a position to win coming down the stretch. Our unit structure being what it is makes Hamlin and Logano more safety plays than upside plays, but we wouldn’t mind grabbing a two-unit profit from one of them winning. That’s more than we’ll get if Verstappen wins in Italy earlier in the day.
Pick: Denny Hamlin to win +1200. Low confidence.
Pick: Joey Logano to win +1200. Low confidence.
Pick: Aric Almirola to win +2000. Low confidence.
Pick: Kevin Harvick to win +2000. Low confidence.
Pick: Kurt Busch to win +2500. Low confidence.
Pick: Ricky Stenhouse Jr. to win +2800. Low confidence.
Pick: Michael McDowell to win +3300. Low confidence.
Pick: Austin Dillon to win +3300. Low confidence.
Pick: Martin Truex Jr. to win +3300. Low confidence.
Pick: Erik Jones to win +5000. Low confidence.
Pick: Ty Dillon to win +8000. Low confidence.
