Apologies for the early push last night. We had a different impression of the weather forecast out east. At least the Pacers win was fun for Pacers bettors in every sense of the word.
One daily MLB moneyline today, plus our weekday MLB futures and our daily NBA and NHL playoff futures.
Anaheim at Sacramento
The big question here is whether Jacob Wilson will be back in the lineup for the A’s. He got hit by a pitch on the forearm on Tuesday, left that game a few innings later, then sat yesterday. X-rays came back clean, and Mark Kotsay said he was available off the bench last night.
Our approach to bullpen fatigue and injuries involves using FanGraphs’s Depth Charts projections for rest-of-season WAR. We look at who we don’t think is available for each team then compare the projected WAR lost between the two sides. If Wilson’s out, the A’s are down 2.3 wins per rest of season (an average of 113 games between the A’s and Angels). If Wilson plays, the A’s are up 1.0 win per rest of season.
Our other option today is going back to the Nationals, who should be up 2.1 wins per rest of season and show an expected ROI of 3.4% before we consider bullpen and injuries. The A’s show an expected ROI of 7.6% pre-availability adjustment.
It’s possible rain will affect the D.C. game again today, but we were going to take the A’s anyway. If you adjust win probabilities such that Wilson doesn’t play, then yes, the Nationals narrowly edge the A’s in expected ROI. It’s likely enough that Wilson plays, though, that we think the A’s true win probability is high enough to keep that ROI above the Nats’. Any weighted average of lineup scenarios ends with Sacramento the move. This involves some guesswork, and we’re probably biased towards the A’s because 1 they’re likelier to win (not a huge deal with an infinite sample of bets, but our sample is finite) and 2 we’re surprised to see them valuable (FanGraphs has been higher on the markets than the Nats, but after an early-season love affair markets have passed it on the A’s). But that’s how we get here, in case you’re someone who reverse engineers our process from the comfort of your laptop.
Pick: Sacramento to win –128. 15.00 units to win 11.72. Anderson and Severino must start.
NLCS
Running this back today with markets unchanged.
Pick: Philadelphia to win +700. 2.00 units to win 14.00.
World Series
Running this back today with markets unchanged.
Pick: New York (AL) to win +750. 2.00 units to win 15.00.
NBA Eastern Conference
Normally, we try to place these futures on teams who play the same day. The idea is to grab a good price before odds change. Today, though, we’re sticking with the Pacers in the Eastern Conference. The value in the West is on the Thunder, and the payout there is small. We’re also curious if markets will come around on Indiana now that in their worst-case scenario, they have home-court advantage in a best of five series.
Pick: Indiana to win –150. 4.00 units to win 2.67.
NHL Eastern Conference
As we said yesterday, our model flipped to seeing value on the Panthers after Game 1. We’ll happily jump in on that. For those wondering, even last night’s large margin wasn’t enough to make Gelo like the Stars relative to the markets. It did knock the Oilers out of positive-EV territory, though. Right now, Panthers ECF is the only positive-EV play our model sees in the single-team conference and Stanley Cup markets. Depending what happens, we might have to start looking at “Western Conference to win Stanley Cup” or series over/unders.
Pick: Florida to win –235. 4.00 units to win 1.70.
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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: –248.09 units (started with 1,000-unit bankroll)
2025: –6% average ROI (weighted by unit; sample size: 336 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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