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 -2.6% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 3,119 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 college basketball season.
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 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.
Possibly the final hedge of hockey season, plus Gelo’s picks for tonight and our last MLB futures of the week. For context: The MLB futures portfolio started at the beginning of the regular season with 520 units, with another 520 in reserve in case we need them for hedging. The NHL futures portfolio started at the beginning of the playoffs with 100 units, with another 100 in reserve in case we needed them for hedging (we did).
Game 5: Tampa Bay @ Colorado (Futures Portfolio)
We enter tonight with outstanding bets such that were we to place no further wagers and were the Avalanche to win the Stanley Cup, we would finish our futures effort down 31.02 units, or roughly 15.5%, whereas were the Lightning to win the Stanley Cup, we would finish our futures effort up 146.08 units, or roughly 73%. Effectively, then, we have an outstanding 31.02-unit bet on the Lightning +471. The market currently has the Lightning at +800. We have a negative-value portfolio.
Our primary goal was to profit with these, or to at least break even. They’re experimental, so we were hoping to conduct a successful experiment and enter next season feeling great about our model’s usability for constructing futures portfolios. Our secondary goal, should we fail at the primary, was to lose no more than 25% of our initial investment. That’s the most we’ve ever lost on a futures portfolio, so keeping that our worst-case scenario would leave us exiting this experiment unsure of our model’s usability in this process but confident in our own ability to avoid disaster.
We can still achieve the primary goal, but to lock ourselves into achieving at least the secondary goal, we have to forfeit some upside. This hedge, 55 units on tonight’s moneyline, would leave us 0.41 units profitable with an Avalanche Game 5 win. Practically speaking, we’d be even. Should it lose, we have enough in the bankroll (we have 168.98 units available right now, so we’d have 113.98 units available tomorrow morning) to guarantee ourselves to get back to only a 25% loss, at worst, as long as the odds on the Avalanche are roughly -110 in a hypothetical Game 6 and roughly -175 again in a hypothetical Game 7. Gelo views the Avalanche as roughly 60% likely to win tonight. The market seems to put that number closer to 61% or 62%. Where this leaves us, then, is with a 3-in-5 shot at a wash and a 2-in-5 shot at a small loss. At this point, given our purposes, that’s about the best we can do.
Pick: Colorado to win -175. Low confidence. x55
Tampa Bay @ Colorado
In single-game picking, Gelo likes the over again, as it has all series. Hopefully our last play of the hockey year.
Pick: Over 6 (-103). Low confidence.
ALCS
Is it too early to talk about playoff path?
Not really.
FanGraphs’s Playoff Odds currently project the final American League standings as possible:
1. New York: 103.7-58.3
2. Houston: 97.2-64.8
3*. Minnesota: 84.1-77.9
4. Toronto: 92.2-69.8
5. Boston: 86.9-75.1
6. Tampa Bay: 84.4-77.6
That’s a big gap between 1 and 2. That’s also a big gap, in the reverse sense, between 3/6 and 4.
The likeliest way for these playoffs to turn out—and these gaps are large enough for us to consider this highly possible, even if not yet actively likely—is for the Yankees to have to play the best Wild Card in the Division Series while the Astros get to play the AL Central champion or the worst Wild Card. That’s a great draw for the Astros.
Pick: Houston to win +350. Medium confidence.
World Series
We won’t go through the same process over here, but in case you’ve missed it, the defending champions have pulled within four games of the Mets in the NL East. They’re still projected to lose the division by 2.5 games, but that’s a lot closer than the 6.5-and-higher we’re dealing with above. If you were to say all teams were equal and ignore home field advantage, a team entering the Wild Card Series should have 1-in-16 odds of winning the World Series while a team entering the Division Series should have 1-in-8 odds. Atlanta has a better-enough roster than at least the NL Central playoff qualifier(s) to drag those probabilities higher, and their chance of winning the East is close enough to 50/50 that even on back of the envelope math, this adds up.
Pick: Atlanta to win +1200. Medium confidence.
