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 -4% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 2,842 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.
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.
Gelo split its moneyline bets yesterday, and that’s good enough for us to revisit that market. More futures as well, both in the NHL and Major League Baseball (for context on these portfolios at large: our NHL bankroll is 100 units, with another 100 in reserve; our MLB bankroll is 520 units, with another 520 in reserve). IndyCar picks tomorrow, NASCAR picks tomorrow or Sunday.
New York Rangers @ Pittsburgh
Concerns about the impact of Sidney Crosby’s likely absence are warranted here, but Gelo’s showing a +15% expected return on this pick, which is…a lot. The Penguins would have to be much, much worse than their normal selves for this to be a bad play in Gelo’s eyes, and our suspicions that Gelo might be underrating playoff home-ice advantage or the impact of being the better overall team both favor the Penguins here. Just one direct play—Gelo likes the Stars and Capitals but that better-team theory gives us pause (we try to run our single-game and futures efforts independently, for replication purposes, but the fact the Capitals and Stars both give us upside in the futures market is probably impacting this choice as well, for transparency’s sake).
Pick: Pittsburgh to win -103. Low confidence.
Western Conference
We continue to build our non-Avalanche, non-Flames assortment in the West, and while the Stars could still help us out both by bringing us a few first round units and getting the Flames out of there, our sixth and seventh units in this market leave us in a boat where the Kings winning would net us 27 units, the Blues winning would net us 19.5 units, and the Oilers winning would net us 14.5 units (with more upside from the Blues from our Stanley Cup future on them). That’s a big gap from which to hedge should we decide we need to.
Gelo views the Blues as the third-best team in the NHL right now. It views the Flames and the Oilers as equivalent. Gelo might be wrong, but it also might be right.
Pick: St. Louis to win +700. Low confidence.
Pick: Edmonton to win +850. Low confidence.
AL West
We spent a lot of this week thickening our Brewers anchor on the division side of the portfolio. Today, we’re going to add a little weight to our second-biggest anchor, which is the Astros. This flips the Angels to an unprofitable route within the AL West in a vacuum, but the Astros have pulled half a game ahead of Anaheim, the Astros are the better team on paper, the Astros are probably going to win this division. A little diversification for us, at good value, is worthwhile, especially since even with these bets in, the Brewers losing the Central—very possible—would necessitate the Twins or Padres (or other semi-surprising team/teams) to win their respective divisions for us to profit on the regular season. Getting to a spot where we’re heavily-enough invested on the first team to put their division away, something we’d guess will happen around the beginning of July, could enable us to full-on corner the division market by the trade deadline. It’s not something we can control, but we can take some good steps in that direction, and this is one of them.
Pick: Houston to win -160. Medium confidence.
Pick: Houston to win -160. Medium confidence.
