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 –0.9% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 5,175 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.9% across 1,631 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.
One MLB moneyline, two MLB futures, and a college football pick for tonight. Here’s the context on each market.
Single-game MLB bets: On the season, we’re 96–71–5, we’re up 16.05 units, we’re up 9% (the average line on our winners has been –110). We got a win yesterday after a tough few weeks. We’re going to try to turn that into a strong kick to the finish line.
MLB futures: We began the season with 750 units in our MLB futures portfolio, with the intent being to spend 500 of those over the regular season and keep 250 in reserve for the postseason and/or hedging & arbitrage opportunities. 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 the 750 units (based on what we’ve bet so far) is 106.26 units, or 14.2%. We may make some more futures plays this weekend, so if you’re following us on these, be aware that it’s no longer a Monday–Friday thing for us. It’s too late in the year for that.
Single-game college football bets: On the season, we’re 11–18, and 11–16 on games involving at least one FBS team. We’re down 8.13 units, and down 28%. Not going great, but we got the win last night.
Kansas City @ Houston
We’re rolling with the Astros here, and there are two angles to this we like. The first is that the Astros are such a big favorite. We want big favorites right now if we can get them, because we don’t love how the bets have been going and with the finish line in sight, we’re content to play it safe. The second is that Cole Ragans has shown some hints of falling off, which would be a very normal thing for him to do at the end of such an amazing year. There are other things we like—the Astros need wins, the Royals are bad, bullpens are fresh—but those are the two big ones. It’s low-upside, but we’ve hit our upside this year. What we want right now is to get four more wins while we figure out our best approach to betting these weird final-weekish games.
Pick: Houston to win –215. Low confidence. (Ragans and Valdez must start.)
World Series
The Astros benefited in a big way from the Blue Jays’ loss last night, getting even more safely in the field with the worse of the Rangers and Mariners assured of going 3–4 at best in seven of the remaining ten games. Elsewhere, the Brewers are looking likeliest to play the Marlins in the Wild Card Series, and while there’s good pitching in Miami, that’s the thing Milwaukee’s better at doing (and, right now, an area of better health for the Crew).
Pick: Houston to win +650. Medium confidence.
Pick: Milwaukee to win +2200. Medium confidence.
Air Force @ San Jose State
This line has moved by three points in Air Force’s favor since opening, but we still don’t think it’s moved far enough. We’re puzzled by the love for SJSU, but we’re more puzzled by why people don’t have faith in the Academy. This is a team who went 10–3 last year, never lost a game by two scores, and handled Baylor in a bowl game. They’ve yet to seriously struggle this season, and while that’s come against a weak schedule, it’s still a respectable feat through 180 minutes of football. The line only opening at 3 or 3.5 gives me pause, but this number just doesn’t make sense to me. Even SP+, which I believe often struggles to evaluate the service academies, has this at least at an 8-point line.
Pick: Air Force –6.5 (–110). Low confidence.
