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 5,034 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 50–34–1, we’re up 10.22 units, we’re up 12% (the average line on our winners has been –113). April was great, May was bad, June has been good.
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 119.09 units, or 11.5%.
Texas @ New York (AL)
Dane Dunning has a weird slash line, with a 2.78 ERA, a 3.94 FIP, and a 5.07 xERA. With a BABIP of .269, what this means is that opposing hitters are hitting the ball spectacularly hard against Dane Dunning and he’s still managing to get far above-average results on balls in play.
That’s not the kind of thing that holds up well over time.
Pick: New York (AL) to win –103. Low confidence. (Dunning and Schmidt must start.)
World Series
It’s time to bet on Atlanta again, their value still positive and their upside dipping closer to the break-even amount in our portfolio. The most valuable option today, though, is the Marlins, and that’s new.
It’s not new that the Marlins are valuable. They’ve been valuable often this year. It’s new that they’re the most valuable option out there. Miami has snuck into a powerful position here a few days ahead of the season’s midway point, currently ten games over .500 and leading the race for the first Wild Card. They’ve been a high-upside option for us for a while, but that upside just got higher, pushing them close to Diamondbacks territory in our scenario rankings, only a step or two below the Giants.
Pick: Atlanta to win +500. Medium confidence.
Pick: Miami to win +6000. Medium confidence.
