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 –2.0% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 7,698 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.6% across 2,293 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. We rely heavily on Nate Silver’s presidential election model for our election futures.
Active markets today: MLB futures and moneylines.
Single-day MLB bets: Last year, we finished the season up about 8%, betting strictly moneylines. We’re 147–124–3 so far this year, down 6.45 units. Over the last 18 days, we’ve been trying a different collection of approaches. So far, that effort is 33–21, up 6.35 units. We’re making progress, but there’s a long way to go.
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 place two medium confidence bets most weekdays until sometime in September when the scenarios become more specific.
Detroit @ Chicago (AL)
Heat Index is now 15–3, up 5.92 units. Today, it likes the Tigers (sneakily hot, mostly thanks to their pitching) to beat the White Sox (no longer a top-4 coldest team!). We don’t know what to expect from Ty Madden, and we kind of like Davis Martin, but Heat Index has a better track record than we do.
Pick: Detroit to win –150. Low confidence. (Madden and Martin must start.)
Game 1: Kansas City @ Cleveland
Heat Index 2 is relatively new, but it’s 3–0. All Heat Index 2 is is Heat Index’s second choice. Today? That’s the Royals over the Guardians. We don’t have a way to make our spreadsheet tell us which game to pick, so we’re going with the first one. Partly because teams should regress to the middle over time, meaning it’s likely the Royals won’t be quite as hot entering the second game while the Guardians won’t be quite as cold; and partly because Cole Ragans is good and the Guardians are using an opener, possibly to get a read on just how good Ragans is before they determine their bullpen strategy for the rest of the day. The Guards just need to hold serve here. The Royals need a doubleheader sweep more than their hosts do.
Pick: Kansas City to win –123. Low confidence. (Ragans and Sandlin must start.)
Tampa Bay @ Seattle
Our underdogs are down to 6–12, down 4.54 units. Their run differential is finally back negative, but it’s only –2. That gives us a Pythagorean win percentage around 48% or 49%, which should be enough to make money at the odds we bet. We’re giving it at least one more day. Candidates to replace it include a (temporary) return to Smallest Favorite, the debut of Heat Index 3, or nothing at all.
Today, our approach leads us to the White Sox, but Heat Index takes priority and already picked against them. After that, our approach doesn’t really like anybody, but it dislikes this Rays bet the least. Both Ryan Pepiot and Bryce Miller might be better than their projections this year. Conceptually, we like this because we kind of think the market looked at the Mariners winning one series after firing their manager and said, “Alright, they’re fixed!” FanGraphs generally hasn’t disliked the Mariners’ value recently. Today, it does.
Pick: Tampa Bay to win +119. Low confidence. (Pepiot and Miller must start.)
NLCS
On the futures front: What if the Diamondbacks are the best team in baseball? They’ve played like it over the last three weeks (by Heat Index) and the last four-ish months (by wins and losses). They’ve got the best value today, and with Atlanta’s positive, we’ll add Atlanta to this, giving us a fifth profitable NL pennant option from the seven most realistic NL playoff teams.
Pick: Atlanta to win +800. Medium confidence.
Pick: Arizona to win +1000. Medium confidence.
