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 –0.8% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 5,027 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.
Two markets today.
Single-game MLB bets: On the season, we’re 46–32, we’re up 7.19 units, we’re up 9% (the average line on our winners has been –117). April was great, May was bad, June has been good so far.
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 102.91 units, or 9.9%.
Cleveland @ Arizona
Triston McKenzie carved up the Twins the weekend before last in his season debut, but he wasn’t as effective last weekend against the Astros. Zac Gallen, meanwhile, might be the best living pitcher in baseball with Jacob deGrom laid to rest yet again. Yes, Gallen’s given up home runs in each of his last two starts. Those are also two of only four long balls he’s allowed all year.
Pick: Arizona to win –133. Low confidence. (McKenzie and Gallen must start.)
ALCS
Little-known fact: The Angels are only one game back of the Astros right now.
The Angels aren’t in a great position. They’re third in the AL West, they’re one game out of the final two Wild Card spots, they’re the Angels. But they’re hot, and the market hasn’t caught up, and they were a break-even scenario for us prior to today. When there’s fresh value on a team, we take it.
Pick: Anaheim to win +1800. Medium confidence.
World Series
And when there isn’t fresh value, we take the best value which makes sense for our portfolio. At the moment, that is still the San Francisco Giants. This will change through bets on other teams and more bets on the Giants and probably some hedging in the end, but if we weren’t to place another bet and the Giants were to win the World Series, we would now net 646 units in the World Series market alone, and another couple hundred in the NLCS. That’s a big position on a team that’s a tossup at best to make the playoffs, but it’s leverage, and we have enough upside elsewhere to let us keep pursuing it. Big series for our guys this weekend down in LA.
Pick: San Francisco to win +5000. Medium confidence.
