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 -4.8% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 3,611 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of 0.8% across 949 completed high and medium-confidence picks (low confidence picks, these days, are in experimental markets for us). Our ETA to get the overall number back profitable is currently November 5th, the date of a potential World Series Game 7.
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 (in both sports and politics) 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. FiveThirtyEight’s SPI is heavily used in making soccer picks. ESPN’s FPI is heavily used in making NFL picks.
Just MLB futures today. We’ll be back tomorrow with more of these, plus college football plays. Keep an eye out in the notes for updates on the futures portfolios (college football, soccer) where we’re lagging behind.
For unit context, on the MLB futures: We started the season with 1,040 units available for futures and hedges against those futures. Entering today, we’ve netted 10.74 units of profit, and we have 406.74 units in the bankroll, with 668 units pending.
World Series
There isn’t anything extremely high-value today, and there isn’t anything that helps our portfolio out a whole lot. We do see the Phillies and Padres as being undervalued, so we’ll throw a chip down on each, making our latest scenario table look like this:
| Winner | Loser | P/L |
| Phillies | Yankees | 479.64 |
| Padres | Yankees | 472.74 |
| Phillies | Astros | 326.94 |
| Padres | Astros | 320.04 |
| Astros | Padres | -3.66 |
| Astros | Phillies | -43.66 |
| Yankees | Padres | -44.46 |
| Yankees | Phillies | -84.46 |
Pick: San Diego to win +360. Medium confidence.
Pick: Philadelphia to win +375. Medium confidence.
