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 -5% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 3,388 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 (low confidence picks, these days, are in experimental markets for us). Our ETA for having the overall number back profitable is currently November 7th, the likeliest date of a World Series Game 7 and the eve of both college basketball season and Election Day.
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 (in both sports and politics) 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. FiveThirtyEight’s SPI is heavily used in making soccer picks.
For context: We started the season with 520 units in our MLB futures portfolio, with another 520 in reserve in case we need them to hedge down the line. We started the season with 50 units in our EFL Championship futures portfolio, with another 50 in reserve in case we need them to hedge down the line. We’re starting the season with 50 units in our Premier League futures portfolio, with another 50 in reserve in case we need them to hedge down the line.
NL East
Unless the Blue Jays, Padres, or Mariners really make things interesting, we’re down to twelve possible combinations of division champions. With this bet, we trade one of those combos (St. Louis/Minnesota/Atlanta) across the profitability line for a more likely one (St. Louis/Minnesota/New York Mets).
Pick: New York to win -300. Medium confidence.
World Series
Simultaneously, we add value on a contradictory pick (there’s a negative correlation between these two bets’ probabilities, though they aren’t mutually exclusive) that’s flashing the best value of any MLB play today. We’re in heavily on Atlanta to win it all, but we feel good about them as our horse, so increasing it is far from a problem. We’d prefer to have that value showing up earlier in the playoffs, so we could stack it like we might be able to with our Toronto ALCS futures, but for whatever reason, Atlanta has consistently been a better World Series play than NLCS play this year, so this is where we’re at. At the end of the day, value is value: We’ll be able to use this in October to build some hedges if we find that necessary.
Pick: Atlanta to win +1200. Medium confidence.
Premier League
Brentford finished last season five points shy of a top-half finish, ending their campaign on a run of 22 points in eleven matches. Some of that was cleaning up against the bottom of the table—they took nine points in their three matches against ultimately relegated teams—but there’s a bottom of the table this year too. This seems to be in the value sweet spot where SPI shows it to be highly valuable but there isn’t a clear SPI susceptibility standing as a red flag.
Pick: Brentford to finish in the top ten +500. Low confidence.
EFL Championship
As with last week, SPI sees higher value on a few clubs to be relegated, but we view this market—in this week’s case, the league champion market—as one more in SPI’s wheelhouse, because we think there’s less hidden in the way of midseason transfers. Nobody seems to disagree on the fact Watford’s a good favorite to win the league. The disagreement just lies in how big a favorite they are.
Pick: Watford to win +650. Low confidence.
