Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 460 completed bets (this doesn’t include outstanding futures picks), Joe’s picks published here and back at All Things NIT, our former site, have an average return on investment of 6% when weighted by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high). This, compared to other picks consistently published online, is pretty good. It would be a decent annual ROI for an investor. But instead it’s coming, on average, on each of these picks.
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Two picks today.
As always:
- Lines come from the Vegas Consensus at the time this is written, or the best approximation I can find of it online.
- Data from FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, Baseball Savant, Spotrac, and ESPN is often used and/or cited.
- The blurbs often aren’t justifications of the picks. Often, they’re instead just notes about something or someone related to the pick. Something that interests me. You are not required to read these. I don’t explain the picks because in general, the rationale behind each pick is the same, so it would be boring to say over and over again that the numbers I use project a good return on investment and I see no red flags significant enough to make me hold off.
Cincinnati @ Pittsburgh
Josh Bell’s dramatic start to the season may have led to some over-appreciation of the slugger. He isn’t an MVP-caliber hitter, especially as a first baseman. But he has put himself into the top 25 by wRC+, and his jump in exit velocity has him hitting the ball harder than 97% of the MLB. After his first two full seasons, it wasn’t clear that Bell would be more than a 1-WAR player. He’s a ways from being one of baseball’s best, but he’s making progress.
Pick: Over 9 (-110). Low confidence.
Kansas City @ Cleveland
The Royals’ -123 run differential is nothing about which Kansas Citians should be excited. But to be fair, it leads the Pythagorean W-L formula to peg them as seven games better than their 45-83 mark, the largest such gap in baseball. Were everyone getting exactly their Pythagorean results, the Royals would be half a game out of third place in their division. And with such strong seasons from Adalberto Mondesi, Hunter Dozier, and Jorge Soler, it’s at least a reason for a small increase in optimism.
Pick: Kansas City +1.5 (-120). Low confidence.
