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 –2.2% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 7,813 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.2% across 2,323 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.
Active markets today: Single-game MLB, single-game college football, and MLB futures. Here’s the context on each market:
MLB moneylines: Last year, we finished the season up about 8%. We’re 167–146–4 so far this year, down 11.79 units. It’s been a bad showing.
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 place two medium confidence bets most weekdays throughout the regular season. We might extend into weekends now that the division futures are starting to pay back out, so keep an eye out for that tomorrow and Sunday.
Single-game college football bets: Our history here is mediocre, and true to form, we’re 7–10 so far this year. We’re down 3.78 units heading into tonight.
Philadelphia @ New York (NL)
Here’s a corner we’ve painted ourselves into: By deciding to bet against the team we think the public views as the hottest in baseball, we locked ourselves into a cycle in which we must either surrender or keep betting against the Mets until they lose. There is no natural way off this position until they lose, and with every win, the losses mount.
Pick: Philadelphia to win +100. Low confidence. (Sánchez and Peterson must start.)
World Series
The best outcomes for our portfolio involve the Tigers, Diamondbacks, and Padres doing well. Behind them come the Mets, and then Atlanta.
The nice thing, then, about seeing this value on Atlanta is that it raises our floor a little bit, at least in terms of what scenarios will be available to us when the playoffs actually start. We’ll still be stung if the Mets or (especially the) Diamondbacks fall out of playoff position, but this makes the downside a little less severe.
Pick: Arizona to win +2400. Medium confidence.
Pick: Atlanta to win +3300. Medium confidence.
Stanford @ Syracuse
We’re drinking the Orange kool-aid. We were impressed by Syracuse against Georgia Tech, and there’s reason to believe in immense upside accompanying Fran Brown as a head coach. We expect Troy Taylor to make progress at Stanford, but that program had gotten into a very bad spot by the time he arrived, and we don’t expect Year 2 to be kind. Give us Cuse to build a solid lead and not give as much of it up this time.
Pick: Syracuse –7.5 (–115). Low confidence.
