I don’t know how the Giants failed to score last night, but I’m sure glad they did.
More MLB moneyline action today, plus our latest against the Rockies and our latest futures: weekday MLB futures, daily NBA and NHL playoff futures.
Cleveland at New York (AL)
We normally wouldn’t bet against someone outperforming their projections to the degree Carlos Rodón’s outperforming his projections, but there just isn’t a lot we like on today’s board. Normally, we get some undervalued favorites on Tuesdays, but maybe the market’s coming around on that.
Pick: Cleveland to win +171. 15.00 units to win 25.65. Bibee and Rodón must start.
Colorado at Miami
This has been a losing play on aggregate since we started making it, but on the season, the Rockies are still losing more games by multiple runs than the Tigers (or Dodgers, Yankees, etc.) are winning, period. We’re going to roll with this until the universe’s repudiation gets too emphatic.
Pick: Miami –1.5 (+125). 15.00 units to win 18.75.
NLCS
For the first time this season, or at least the first time we’ve noticed, there’s postseason futures value available on the Brewers. As a fan of a team in the NL Central, that’s ominous.
Elsewhere, there’s still that solid value available on Atlanta, and with the price probably not getting longer if they stay anywhere near contention, we’ll grab more of it while it’s here.
Pick: Milwaukee to win +5000. 2.00 units to win 100.00.
Pick: Atlanta to win +1200. 2.00 units to win 24.00.
NBA Finals
We don’t have our own NBA model, but through some help from Neil Paine’s and information available about its predecessor, FiveThirtyEight’s RAPTOR, we can take the market’s odds for the Finals as a series and the market’s odds for Game 1 and reverse engineer a rough expectation of what probability the market sees for games in Indianapolis, not just games in Oklahoma City. Not every game is created equal, of course—it’s wise to run simulations at least lukewarm if not outright hot, and the NBA has a notable affinity for scheduled losses—but a crude Monte Carlo model gives us the following probabilities:
- Series decided in four games: 12%
- Series decided in five games: 30%
- Series decided in six games: 34%
- Series decided in seven games: 25%
Prop markets are all over the place on these, and if you look at enough books you might be able to find arbitrage. What we’re focused on, though, is how large that six-game probability is. It’s counterintuitive. The Thunder are the favorites. Aren’t they likelier to clinch at home?
No. They’re not. At least, not if the probabilities are what markets imply. In 46% of our simulations, the Thunder clinched in Indianapolis. There’s more than a 50% chance they clinch in five or six games, but the likeliest single scenario is the Thunder winning in six.
I’m skeptical of our simulations here, but only to a point. Even if the series goes to six games, I’m not sure Scott Foster and Pacers magic would be enough to hold the Thunder off as they try to avoid a Game 7 do-or-die scenario. My guess is that the market is a little overconfident on the “if it gets to six, it’ll get to seven” angle. Still, with seven games also flashing a positive EV, we’ll just take over 5.5 here and not worry about threading any needles. Tomorrow, we might even take a peek at over 4.5 to see where that price stands.
Our portfolio’s new scenarios, given what we’ve bet so far:
| Winner | G1 Winner | Games | Total |
| Thunder | Pacers | Over 5.5 | 81.88 |
| Thunder | Pacers | Under 5.5 | 64.28 |
| Pacers | Pacers | Over 5.5 | 60.78 |
| Pacers | Pacers | Under 5.5 | 43.18 |
| Thunder | Thunder | Over 5.5 | 14.68 |
| Thunder | Thunder | Under 5.5 | -2.92 |
| Pacers | Thunder | Over 5.5 | -6.42 |
| Pacers | Thunder | Under 5.5 | -24.02 |
Pick: Over 5.5 games +120. 8.00 units to win 9.60.
Stanley Cup Finals
Here, we do have a model, and it likes the under on the total game count relative to what the market thinks. Is this because it runs those simulations so hot, adjusting to information it receives from hypothetical Game 1 results and applying that information throughout the series? That’s probably part of it. But what I really think that captures is the possibility that these two teams are pretty far apart in quality. We haven’t seen an Eastern Conference team play a Western Conference team in a while.
Our portfolio’s new scenarios, given what we’ve bet so far:
| Winner | G1 Winner | Games | Total |
| Oilers | Oilers | Under 5.5 | 42.56 |
| Oilers | Panthers | Under 5.5 | 33.53 |
| Oilers | Oilers | Over 5.5 | 14.81 |
| Oilers | Panthers | Over 5.5 | 5.78 |
| Panthers | Oilers | Under 5.5 | -38.36 |
| Panthers | Panthers | Under 5.5 | -47.39 |
| Panthers | Oilers | Over 5.5 | -66.11 |
| Panthers | Panthers | Over 5.5 | -75.14 |
Pick: Under 5.5 games +175. 5.00 units to win 8.75.
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I am only roughly 90% confident in these numbers. At some point we’ll get that Google Sheet up which tracks all our bets this year.
2025: –310.12 units (started with 1,000-unit bankroll)
2025: –7% average ROI (weighted by unit; sample size: 358 single-game markets plus one completed futures portfolio and two partly completed futures portfolios)
Pre-2025: 0% average ROI (worse when limited to only sports)
Units taken from best odds we can find at major sportsbooks available to most Americans.
These bets are not investment advice. If you’re worried you or someone you know might have a gambling addiction, call 1-800-GAMBLER for free, confidential help.
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