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 –2.0% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 7,631 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.6% across 2,293 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 rely heavily on FanGraphs for all our MLB action. We rely heavily on Nate Silver’s presidential election model for our election futures.
Active markets today: MLB moneylines and futures.
Single-day MLB bets: Last year, we finished the season up about 8%, betting strictly moneylines. We’ve tried a similar approach this year. We’re 110–96–3 so far, down 9.00 units. We’ve gotten within reach of profitability a few timesr, but we haven’t been able to sustain a surge.
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 place two medium-confidence bets most weekdays until sometime in September when the scenarios become more specific.
Kansas City @ Detroit
Yes, Tarik Skubal starts tonight for the Tigers. But Cole Ragans starts for the Royals, and despite a full run’s difference between their respective ERA’s, Ragans’s FIP is almost as good as Skubal’s. Factor in the difference in lineup quality and you don’t need much of a recency adjustment to call the Royals favorites.
Pick: Kansas City to win +100. Low confidence. (Ragans and Skubal must start.)
Toronto @ New York (AL)
It’s supposed to be stormy tonight in the Bronx, and that should help the Yankees. Their one red flag tonight is Marcus Stroman, whose strikeouts are down, home runs are up, and contact quality is also up. If rain chases the starters early or throws them off, that should hurt the Blue Jays more than it hurts New York.
Pick: New York (AL) to win –158. Low confidence. (Gausman and Stroman must start.)
World Series
This is our last Yankees World Series future for a few days. It finally gets them profitable for us in that market, which is especially great because they could become the favorite soon (they might only play three games this month against teams with winning records).
With Atlanta, we recognize the risk, with Reynaldo López hurt and Chris Sale old. Still, they’re in a powerful position, and their upside is high. This gets them profitable again in the World Series market as well.
Not accounting for the bets to come and isolating the World Series market, the World Series portion of our portfolio has a 44% chance of profiting, a 30% chance of bringing something back without profiting, and a mean expected return of 28%. We want to raise that first number, but the third number is the important one.
Pick: New York (AL) to win +600. Medium confidence.
Pick: Atlanta to win +1200. Medium confidence.
