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 –0.7% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 5,084 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +3.1% across 1,617 completed high and medium-confidence picks (low confidence picks, these days, are in experimental markets for us).
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 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. FanGraphs is heavily used in making MLB picks.
One moneyline, two futures. Here’s the context on each.
Single-game MLB bets: On the season, we’re 76–57–4, we’re up 14.60 units, we’re up 11% (the average line on our winners has been –106). April was great, May was bad, June was good, July was great. August is going well so far, but we’ve had a couple tough losses these last two days.
MLB futures: We began the season with 750 units in our MLB futures 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. This is circular, because we use FanGraphs probabilities to guide our picks, but if we use FanGraphs probabilities and include today’s plays, our mean expected return on the 750 units (based on what we’ve bet so far) is 67.35 units, or 6.5%.
Tampa Bay @ Anaheim
It’s another tough board today, at a tough time of year, but we can see there being some value on Tampa Bay. They need wins, they had a day off yesterday to get the bullpen right, the Angels might not be fully reeling but things aren’t going great. There’s also the distraction angle, which could be explained to lead the Rays in a few different directions. Our guess with this is that it’s making the market too low on them in individual games. We aren’t messing with them for futures, still, at least for the moment, but for one moneyline, we’ll take a shot.
Pick: Tampa Bay to win –102. Low confidence. (Ramírez and Anderson must start.)
ALCS
We’re going back to this today, and it’s enough to flip the Astros to a narrowly profitable ALCS scenario for us. With our other profitable options on that front the Orioles, Blue Jays, Twins, and Red Sox, having one of the pennant favorites should help us.
Pick: Houston to win +325. Medium confidence.
Pick: Houston to win +325. Medium confidence.
