Today’s Best Bets: Friday, October 18th

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 7,956 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2% across 2,411 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 rely heavily on Nate Silver’s presidential election model for our election futures. For college football bets, we primarily use our own model. For NFL bets, we lean on ESPN’s FPI.

Our active markets today are MLB futures and single-game college football. Here’s the context on each:

MLB futures – In four of the five years we’ve done these, we’ve profited, twice by large margins. We began this season with 750 units in our portfolio. We placed two medium confidence bets most weekdays throughout the regular season, as usual, then pivoted to placing a more variable number throughout the playoffs, as usual. We’re currently big fans of the Guardians and Mets, and we do not want the Dodgers to win it all.

Single-game college football bets – Our history here is mediocre, and we’ve had a bad first half of this season, with an 18–24 record so far. We’re down 7.77 units heading into tonight.

Our election futures are delayed this week. We might end up pushing this week’s batch into next week and doubling up again, but more likely, we’ll get caught up before the end of the weekend.

World Series

There’s almost value on the Yankees today after last night’s comeback-turned-collapse, but it’s not quite there. There’s almost value on the Dodgers in the NLCS, but it isn’t quite there either, and it’d be at –1400. The only value is still on Cleveland, and we’re not ready to hedge just yet, so we’re taking it (albeit still with only two additional units).

One thing that’s giving us hope, as Guardians and Mets bettors, is how much public emotion seems to be swinging the markets right now. Bets on the Guardians to win the ALCS seem to have spiked after last night, even as the World Series price on them hung close to where it’s been (adjusting for their position in the series). Bets on the Dodgers to win the World Series also appear to have spiked. What we’re hoping this produces, if it’s indeed a Yankees/Dodgers World Series, is rotating opportunity on whoever looked vulnerable most recently. We’ve got a lot of bankroll (274 units are available to us entering tomorrow, and there’ll be 110 more if the Dodgers don’t let the NLCS get to a Game 6), but we’re still going to need volatility in order to profit unless the Mets or Guards come back.

New scenarios:

We could theoretically balance the Guardians and the Dodgers if the Dodgers’ odds were –154 or longer in that matchup, but what we really want is the Mets and Guards to both win today, shaking things up and producing some new opportunity, at least on the Yankees if not on L.A.

Pick: Cleveland to win +1200. Medium confidence.

Brown @ Princeton

We’re paying a little extra to bet this game. The juice is bigger, with a –140/+110 split rather than –135/+115, which would average out to the standard –110/–110. The reason is that we really don’t know what to make of the FBS spreads. Tonight is such an obvious trap game for Oregon, but with the exception of last week’s second half, Purdue has been absolutely terrible. This is a similarly obvious Mike Gundy bounce-back game, especially after the week idle, but BYU has the altitude on their side, and the spread isn’t even in the double digits. Fresno State’s Movelor rating is unchanged since preseason, but Movelor overestimated Michigan out of the gate and therefore probably still has Fresno State two points higher than it would with a more reasonable assessment of the Wolverines. Meanwhile, Nevada’s 10 points better in Movelor’s eyes than preseason expectations. If Movelor’s off by even two more points on the Wolf Pack, we’re into agreement with the Vegas odds. FSU/Duke? Don’t ask us. We think Movelor should have found FSU’s bottom by now, but it’s easy to picture that bottom continuing to drop.

We could pivot to over/unders, but we really don’t have much of a track record there, so we’re relying on others’ models at that point and our own inconsistent logic. So, to the FCS we turn. Specifically, to the Ivy League.

Princeton’s offense is a disaster. They’ve got a first-year offensive coordinator and it’s going horribly. We’re not concerned about last week—Mercer is a good FCS team—but we don’t like 18.5 points per game. Brown, meanwhile, generated some excitement by upsetting Harvard, who has otherwise played quite well. The high-level knowns here point towards Brown maybe winning outright on the road.

Those high-level knowns, though, are few in number, and they don’t consider the location of the game or Bob Surace’s track record at Princeton. Every season since 2017, Surace has managed a winning record in Ivy League play. James Perry has only won more than one Ivy League game in a year once, last season. Maybe Brown’s offense really did turn a corner last year and Justin Wilcox is about to tear up the Ivy League, but Bryant and Rhode Island aren’t exactly juggernauts (URI is not as good as their ranking), and Wilcox’s numbers were good but not huge in those two games.

Brown has gotten better these last few years, and Princeton is definitely down right now. But we have a hard time believing it’s dire enough to erase any Princeton home-field advantage, and we like these +110 odds on a spread that’ll play if the game goes to overtime, a marginal but decently probable possibility.

Pick: Princeton –3 (+110). Low confidence.