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 7,645 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: Single-game MLB bets, MLB futures.
Single-day MLB bets: Last year, we finished the season up about 8%, betting strictly moneylines. We’re 116–104–3 so far this year, down 11.74 units. We tried three new approaches yesterday and had a nice little day behind them. We’ll run them back this evening.
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.
Chicago (NL) @ Chicago (AL)
We’re trying three new approaches for MLB moneylines. We detailed them yesterday. The first goes off something we’re referring to as Heat Index, and the concept is to look at how each team’s pitched and hit over a specific recent timeframe (we’re using games after the All-Star Break) and bet on the game with the biggest gap. The White Sox have played 40% worse than an average team since the All-Star Break. The Cubs have played 4% worse than average, but that’s still big enough to be the biggest gap today. (The team closest to the White Sox, for those curious, is the 18% below-average Rangers.) The idea here is that the market undervalues recent performance, something we’ve seen evidence to support in previous Augusts and Septembers.
The concern with this game, of course, is that the White Sox just fired their manager. That should give them a jolt. We’re looking for a process that takes our thoughts out of the equation, though. We’re looking for an objective approach. Maybe we’ll get burned, but the nice thing about the Heat Index is that it’s usually going to give us our highest win probability of the day.
Pick: Chicago (NL) to win –139. Low confidence. (Taillon and Crochet must start.)
Anaheim @ Washington
The second approach is to look for the Smallest Favorite. This one lost yesterday, but in two previous incarnations, it won, so while we’re going to let ourselves be beholden to small samples (there’s only so much season left), we’re not punting on this after a single one-run loss. The idea here is that the market is good at determining favorites but that bettors psyche themselves out when the win probability gets too close to 50%. We hate betting against José Soriano, one of the most undervalued pitchers in the league, but again, we’re being objective here.
Pick: Washington to win –110. Low confidence. (Soriano and Parker must start.)
Oakland @ Toronto
The third approach is Dogs Only, and it’s to find an underdog who meets our criteria from last year plus April and May of this year. We think we may have gotten too cautious. We’re head over heels about this one—José Berríos has bad peripherals, the A’s are hot, and Chad Green had to throw a lot of pitches to get the Jays out of last night alive—but that might not be a great sign, given our recent performance on bets we simply liked.
Pick: Oakland to win +128. Low confidence. (Spence and Berríos must start.)
World Series
The big value play here is the Diamondbacks. Gabriel Moreno’s injury is concerning, but he’s only one player, and the D-Backs do get to play both the Rockies and the Marlins three times apiece over the next two weeks. Moreno will be out longer than that, but the Diamondbacks are still likelier than not to hold onto a playoff position, and their upside—a potential playoff rotation of Zac Gallen, Brandon Pfaadt, Eduardo Rodriguez, and Merrill Kelly—is so high that the downside—Jordan Montgomery continuing to struggle—isn’t guaranteed to be a deal-breaking scenario. The Diamondbacks are good. There’s even an outside chance they win the NL West and get themselves a first-round bye.
The Yankees are better, but their price is more expensive. The value here is only narrowly positive, not big like that of Arizona. But, we want as many profitable options in the portfolio as possible, and this keeps New York’s American League team in that category.
Pick: Arizona to win +3500. Medium confidence.
Pick: New York (AL) to win +600. Medium confidence.
