Editor’s Note: For almost two years now, Joe has been publishing picks here and back at All Things NIT, our former site. There have been moments of elation (the Nationals winning the 2019 World Series, the first two months of last college basketball season). There have been moments of frustration (the Dodgers’ NLCS comeback, the second two months of last college basketball season). Overall, the results have been positive, with an average return on investment, per pick, of 0.1% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 1,175 published picks, not including pending futures. And while 0.1% might not be a great annual return on overall investments, it’s positive. And you can do something with positive.
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. The blurbs aren’t always explanations of the picks—sometimes they are, but often they’re just notes related to the contest, to avoid redundancy. Data and predictions from FanGraphs is heavily used in making MLB picks. Data from Baseball Savant and ESPN is also often used with those. Data from Bill Connelly’s SP+ is heavily used in making College Football picks.
Yes, the MLB futures collapse has these picks’ average ROI per unit on the brink. Perhaps providentially, or perhaps in some sort of curse by the universe, there’s a presidential election on Tuesday, and the betting markets disagree heavily with the experts’ models. So, we’re going to take a shot. A big shot.
But first, college football:
Arkansas @ Texas A&M
Tomorrow, Arkansas plays at Texas A&M in the game normally reserved for JerryWorld. (Do we do camel casing with Jerry World? Is there a space? Is it one word but all caps?) Will the new locale help the Aggies? It can’t hurt, but the bigger factor here is that Arkansas’s defense, which deserves credit for the six picks it grabbed against Mississippi, is excelling at turnovers, which are harder to reproduce than just stopping the ball (though turnovers aren’t entirely unpredictive, and Arkansas’s a hog-shed-full of fun this year). Couple that with an offense that’s still suspect, and the market’s probably putting too much stock in Arkansas beating mediocre teams, too much stock in A&M getting tattooed by Bama, and too little stock in A&M’s clampdown on Mississippi State/road triumph over Florida.
Pick: Texas A&M -12.5 (-110). Low confidence.
And now…
U.S. Election
Ok. First, a few rules: We’re using Bovada odds because of the absence of a reliable consensus, and because they have the ten-state prop bet. The bets below are everything with an eROI at or above five percent if you trust FiveThirtyEight’s model (and I trust FiveThirtyEight’s model, which would’ve made us all plenty of money had we followed it in 2016). A few notes:
- Joe Biden’s about an 89% favorite right now, which makes the eROI on him winning the election 40%. That’s enormous. Now, he could lose. There’s a one-in-nine chance he loses. But 40% eROI’s with no lag time don’t come around often, and when they do, they’re normally for underdogs, not favorites.
- The ten-state prop isn’t something 538 gives explicit probabilities for. I used their interactive forecast, where you pick state results and see how those results impact the probabilities in other states. That process, done a few different ways, landed with the probability of Biden winning all ten somewhere in the 23%-25% range. State results are correlated with one another, so the prop really comes down to whether Biden can win both of Ohio and Iowa and not suffer an anomaly elsewhere.
- Results might take a while to be finalized. Days. Weeks, if the courts are involved. Keep this in mind with your bankroll, and keep in mind that your book might decide a bet early or push it if it’s unclear. The electoral college votes in mid-December.
Now, the picks:
Pick: Joe Biden to win 2020 U.S. Presidential Election -175. High confidence.
Pick: Democratic Party to win control of U.S. Senate (50+ Senators & Vice President or 51+ Senators) -160. Medium confidence.
Pick: Democratic Party to retain control of U.S. House of Representatives -600. High confidence.
Pick: Joe Biden to win national popular vote -550. High confidence.
Pick: Joe Biden to win all ten of AZ/FL/GA/IA/MI/MN/NC/OH/PA/WI +600. Low confidence.
Pick: Joe Biden to win Virginia -1600. High confidence.
Pick: Joe Biden to win New Mexico -900. High confidence.
Pick: Joe Biden to win New Hampshire -450. High confidence.
Pick: Joe Biden to win Minnesota -360. High confidence.
Pick: Joe Biden to win Nevada -350. High confidence.
Pick: Joe Biden to win Michigan -300. High confidence.
Pick: Joe Biden to win Wisconsin -300. High confidence.
Pick: Joe Biden to win Pennsylvania -185. Medium confidence.
Pick: Joe Biden to win Arizona -150. Medium confidence.
Pick: Joe Biden to win North Carolina -115. Medium confidence.
Pick: Joe Biden to win Florida +120. Medium confidence.
Pick: Joe Biden to win Georgia +120. Low confidence.
Pick: Joe Biden to win Ohio +210. Low confidence.
Pick: Joe Biden to win Texas +275. Low confidence.
Pick: Joe Biden to win Alaska +650. Low confidence.
Pick: Joe Biden to win Montana +800. Low confidence.
