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 –2% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 7,124 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2% across 2,268 completed high and medium-confidence picks. The low confidence picks are the problem. Most of our picks are in the low confidence category.
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’re afraid you might have a gambling problem, seek help.
Odds for these come from the better option between Bovada and BetOnline. We used to use the Vegas Consensus, but it’s no longer consistently available in an accurate form online. We use kenpom heavily to make college basketball picks. We use our own college basketball model to evaluate college basketball futures. We rely heavily on FanGraphs for all our MLB action.
Active markets today: Major League Baseball, in futures markets and on single games. We’ll be back to college basketball tomorrow. Licking our wounds again.
Single-day MLB bets: Last year, we finished the season up about 8%, betting strictly moneylines. We’re trying the same approach this year. We’re 3–5 so far, down 2.71 units.
MLB futures: We have a great history with these, though the last two years we’ve only made small profits. In both 2019 and 2021, I believe we recorded better than a 50% ROI. In 2020, we lost about 25% of our portfolio. We began this season with 750 units in our portfolio, with the intent being to spend 500 of those over the regular season and keep 250 in reserve for the postseason and/or hedging & arbitrage opportunities. We plan to place two medium-confidence bets most weekdays.
New York (NL) @ Cincinnati
The red flag we’re accepting here is that the Reds are probably a little worse than FanGraphs has them, due to Jeimer Candelario being at least a little bit banged up. What we like is that the Mets are coming off a doubleheader and the Reds are rested. That can be overvalued, but it doesn’t seem to be overvalued here, unless the Candelario thing is being weighted really, really heavily, which I doubt is the case.
Pick: Cincinnati to win –118. Low confidence. (Quintana and Greene must start.)
World Series
The odds are too long here in a 12-team playoff format. The Padres have had to regroup, but they’re still projected to finish around .500, with close to a 50/50 chance of making the playoffs.
Pick: San Diego to win +6000. Medium confidence.
NLCS
With that Padres pick, we now have something down on every team presenting positive value in any futures market this morning. So, we move to our second future on the Braves, this one in the pennant market (our other is on them to win the World Series). They’re the best team in baseball. They’re better than the Dodgers. The Dodgers might get better from here, but that’s a lot to ask.
Pick: Atlanta to win +250. Medium confidence.
