Hard to be mad about yesterday, given how often the Reds trailed. But, they did allow two runs in the ninth inning to let the Mariners tie the game. Maybe we shouldn’t have said the bullpen fatigue equation balanced in their favor.
Miami at Philadelphia
We’re having to bend our guidelines again to find a play that fits. In some ways, that’s a good big-picture sign: If our guidelines are selective enough to sometimes return nothing, then they might be doing a good job. It’s a bit of a bad sign if you run a system looking for value and it tells you two out of every three MLB moneylines is valuable.
More practically, it’s tough. We don’t have a good way of identifying value today.
This is our best option. FanGraphs has it as positive-EV. The bullpen fatigue/injury balance should favor the Marlins if Brandon Marsh doesn’t play (we’re reading the tea leaves and thinking he won’t—as opposed to Alex Bregman, who seems decently likely to return for Boston, for whatever that’s worth). The issue is that Sandy Alcantara’s xERA and FIP are both worse than his FanGraphs Depth Charts FIP projection. That’s a red flag for us.
It’s only been three starts, which is part of why we’re taking this despite the red flag. But Alcantara’s walk numbers have been concerning so far, and it’s not great that he isn’t going the six–and–a–third FanGraphs thinks he’ll pitch in an average start. We don’t want a close game in the hands of the Marlins’ bullpen. Alcantara’s returning from a long time on the shelf, which could cut both ways but mostly lengthens the worse tail of outcomes in his probability distribution. We’re concerned.
Why go forward with this? For one thing, we just aren’t seeing better options. Beyond that, though, we think the small-sample piece matters. That FIP/xERA red flag makes more sense in June than it does in April. We’re going to take the route that trusts FanGraphs the most.
Pick: Miami to win +188. 15.00 units to win 28.20. Alcantara and Wheeler must start.
AL West
This one’s straightforward given our MLB futures process. We weren’t set to profit on the AL West market if the Mariners won it. There’s value on the Mariners at this price. Now, we’ll profit on the AL West market if the Mariners win the AL West.
Pick: Seattle to win +275. 2.00 units to win 5.50.
NLCS
This one’s trickier. There’s better value out there, but as part of our shift to a larger focus on profit probability, I think we need to take the Mets, since this value is at least positive. They’re one of three National League teams FanGraphs has more than 50% likely to play in the Division Series. We only have a World Series future on them already—not a pennant future. This fills in a crack, at least for a couple weeks until we get more NLCS futures down.
Pick: New York to win +700. 2.00 units to win 14.00.
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I am only roughly 90% confident in these numbers. We’ll get that Google Sheet up soon which tracks all our bets this year.
2025: –99.49 units (started with 1,000-unit bankroll)
2025: –3% average ROI (weighted by unit; sample size: 298 single-game markets plus one completed futures portfolio)
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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