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 –0.6% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 5,354 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +3.1% across 1,754 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. Movelor is heavily used in making college football picks, with some references to ESPN’s FPI and SP+. FPI is heavily used in making NFL picks, especially futures.
We’ve got today’s MLB futures, and we’ve got both college football tonight. Here’s the context on each.
MLB futures: We began the season with 750 units in our MLB futures portfolio. 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 those 750 units is 117.43 units, or 15.7%.
Single-game college football bets: On the season, we’re 35–30–1. We’re up 2.60 units and up 4%.
World Series (Hedge)
We have a good situation going in that our expected outcome on the season is currently a 16% profit. We have a slightly worse situation going in that there’s only about a 1-in-6 chance we exceed that 16% number. Our upside is huge, but it’s concentrated in the Diamondbacks, and so our task these next few days is to use that leverage to spread the upside around without sacrificing too much value.
The value right now is on the Diamondbacks and Astros, at least as the FanGraphs model sees it, but because that disagreement has been the case all year, that’s also where we have our upside (or lack of downside, in Houston’s case). FanGraphs has said the Diamondbacks are valuable and the Rangers aren’t; we’ve bet on the Diamondbacks and against the Rangers; it’s worked out great but now we’re at the hedging stage as we make sure we cash in the value we’ve accumulated.
So, with our options to bet on the Phillies and bet on the Rangers, we’re taking the least bad-value option we can find, and that’s this one. We’re placing twenty units on it because if odds hold steady and we do that every day between now and Monday, we’ll have an even split in the event of a Phillies/Rangers World Series, our current worst-case scenario. That doesn’t mean this is what we’ll do—the odds will move and we’ll get the ZiPS probabilities, which are also a nice thing to check—but we’re operating in a way that leaves that possible if the situation remains static.
As it stands, our eight World Series outcomes are now as follows. This is season-long net profit/loss.
| Winner | Loser | Net |
| Arizona | Houston | 553.56 |
| Arizona | Texas | 516.26 |
| Philadelphia | Houston | 99.56 |
| Houston | Arizona | 89.16 |
| Philadelphia | Texas | 62.26 |
| Houston | Philadelphia | 37.16 |
| Texas | Arizona | -77.74 |
| Texas | Philadelphia | -129.74 |
Pick: Philadelphia to win +210. Medium confidence. x10
Fresno State @ Utah State
We are far from out on Fresno State, even if we’re Wyoming skeptics (we love Wyoming, to be clear; we’re just a little wary of that hype). The Bulldogs are a good team, and Utah State is fine but I would not describe Utah State as a good team. We like the visitors tonight to get back on track, and to do it somewhat comfortably.
Pick: Fresno State –5.5 (–113). Low confidence.
