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% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 7,408 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2% across 2,268 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’re relying on Neil Paine’s NBA forecast as the basis for our playoff futures portfolio. We use our own Gelo model as the basis for our NHL playoff futures portfolio.
Active markets today: Major League Baseball moneylines, plus MLB, NBA, and NHL futures.
Single-day MLB bets: Last year, we finished the season up about 8%, betting strictly moneylines. We’ve tried a similar approach this year. We’re 46–51 so far, down 9.68 units. It’s been a terrible performance, but for whatever it’s worth, we’re 4–1 over our last five.
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.
NBA futures: We’ve only done these once before, but they went well. I believe we made a 7% return on our investment last year. We started at the beginning of the Play-In Tournament with a 100-unit portfolio. Right now, we’re mostly just placing one future per day. We’re down 7.83 units so far, but we’re set to profit on the effort if the Celtics win the Finals.
NHL futures: We’ve had mixed results on these. In 2022, we lost 25% of our futures portfolio. Last year, we made a 33% return. We began on the first day of the playoffs with a 100-unit portfolio. Right now, we’re mostly placing just one future per day. We’re down 2.20 units so far.
St. Louis @ Philadelphia
We’re getting aggressive today, which might be really dumb, given how far we’re in the hole already on the year. Our logic is that we’re seeing opportunities we like, we haven’t seen a lot of those lately, and the ones we’ve liked this week have done well. Also, a deeper hole isn’t that different from the one we’re already in, while some momentum would be a big shift for us.
So, we’re taking shots like this one, where Aaron Nola’s still sometimes valued like his 2022 self and Miles Mikolas is due for some good regression regarding his ERA. The Phillies have been scorching hot, of course, but that isn’t going to last forever, and the Cardinals are actually the better team over their last ten.
Pick: St. Louis to win +174. Low confidence. (Mikolas and Nola must start.)
Detroit @ Boston
Kenta Maeda’s first start back went well, but he got a lot of good results on balls in play, and Tanner Houck has been so dominant so far. Houck was always one projection systems seemed higher on than markets, which makes us more inclined to chase a budding ace.
Pick: Boston to win –162. Low confidence. (Maeda and Houck must start.)
Washington @ Cleveland
The Nats burned all their good bullpen yesterday and now have to rely on Patrick Corbin, who hasn’t been a disaster but still isn’t good right now. Tanner Bibee’s been solid. Within the window of expectations.
Pick: Cleveland to win –225. Low confidence. (Corbin and Bibee must start.)
New York (AL) @ San Francisco
Marcus Stroman’s coming off three starts of good results, but we still view that ERA with skepticism. His walk numbers keep climbing year over year, and both his xERA and FIP are the highest they’ve ever been. We don’t have to buy Jordan Hicks too hard to justify this.
Pick: San Francisco to win +115. Low confidence. (Stroman and Hicks must start.)
AL Central
We don’t have anything on the Tigers to win their division, and while that isn’t exactly a hole we’ve had circled, we’ll fill any gap we see if we can fill it with a positive-value play. The starting pitching appears to be real, and in a division this tenuous, that could be enough to keep them in the race. At this long of a price, we could work with “in the race.”
Pick: Detroit to win +2000. Medium confidence.
ALCS
This is another vulnerability, and we did have it circled. This is only our second play on the Yankees to win the pennant, and we’re likely going to need a whole lot of them if we want to be insulated against that fairly likely scenario. We chip away.
Pick: New York to win +250. Medium confidence.
NBA Finals
We’ve reached the point where our NBA portfolio is effectively a 32.83-unit bet on the Celtics to win the Finals that only pays 2.80 units if it hits. We’d need the Mavericks to be available at +1173 to hedge to an even outcome.
This is far from ideal, but we’d rather be on the Celtics side than the Mavs side. They’re the better team on paper, and there are still probably more questions about Dallas than there are about Boston. Or at least, there should be. We’ll keep loading up on the Celtics at the prices we can get, and then if they can grab a series lead we’ll look into hedging. If they don’t grab a series lead? We’re screwed.
Pick: Boston to win –210. Low confidence.
NHL Western Conference
We were in really good shape there with the Rangers after they went up 2–1, and now we’re in bad shape on them again. The nice thing is that Panthers over Stars is still a profitable scenario for us. The bad thing is that all other scenarios are unprofitable. We’ve got work to do, and we really want Dallas to grab a win tonight in Game 5.
Pick: Dallas to win –120. Low confidence.
