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% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 7,295 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2% across 2,268 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.
Active markets today: Major League Baseball, both moneylines and futures. We’re waiting one more day to see what NBA probability models are available before we decide how to approach our NBA Playoff Futures portfolio.
Single-day MLB bets: Last year, we finished the season up about 8%, betting strictly moneylines. We’re trying the same approach this year. We’re 11–14 so far, down 3.26 units. It’s been a bad start, but we did have a nice mid-April run last year, and we had a good weekend, cutting that deficit by a few units since Friday morning.
MLB futures: We have a great history with these, though the last two years we’ve only made small profits. In both 2019 and 2021, I believe we recorded better than a 50% ROI. In 2020, we lost about 25% of our portfolio. We began this season with 750 units in our 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. We plan to place two medium-confidence bets most weekdays.
Cincinnati @ Seattle
The red flag here is that Frankie Montas has been outperforming expectations on the young season, comparing his projected FIP to his real FIP and xERA. Still, the Reds used some significant bullpen yesterday, and George Kirby has been far from bad in the early going himself. We’ll take the Mariners as our least-bad option of the day.
Pick: Seattle to win –144. Low confidence. (Montas and Kirby must start.)
NLCS
Spencer Strider’s injury is a big deal, and while the Mets are ostensibly rebuilding, good luck convincing Steve Cohen of that if they’re close to playoff position come July. There’s some value here. Not a bad piece to add to the portfolio mix.
Pick: New York (NL) to win +5000. Medium confidence.
AL West
We’re not saying the A’s are going to go full Major League here. We’re saying that with the Astros and Mariners struggling and the Rangers waiting on a lot of help, there’s better than a 1-in-201 chance the A’s win the AL West.
Pick: Oakland to win +20000. Medium confidence.
