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 -5% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 3,388 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of 0.3% across 762 completed high and medium-confidence picks (low confidence picks, these days, are in experimental markets for us). Our ETA for having the overall number back profitable is currently November 7th, the likeliest date of a World Series Game 7 and the eve of both college basketball season and Election Day.
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 have a gambling problem, get help.
Lines for these come from the Vegas consensus or the closest approximation available at the time picks are written, unless otherwise noted. For futures bets (in both sports and politics) and motorsports bets, odds are taken from the better option between Bovada and BetOnline as our best approximation of the Vegas consensus, which isn’t currently/accurately available online. FanGraphs is heavily used in making MLB picks. FiveThirtyEight’s SPI is heavily used in making soccer picks.
Just MLB futures today. For context: We started the season with 520 units in our MLB futures portfolio, plus another 520 in reserve in case we need to hedge down the line.
AL East
This is a longshot, but the value’s too good to pass up, and the upcoming schedules for the Blue Jays and Yankees are far, far, far apart in difficulty. Our division portfolio is hurting a little, with the Cardinals surging and the Brewers fading, but we do have a positive Cardinals route, and we’re still hoping to pump up the AL Central side as the three-team race over there keeps creating narrow value on various teams. Right now, our worst realistic case (nobody less than 10% likely to win their division wins their division) is one in which the Guardians and Cardinals win the Centrals. Even that leaves us only down 2.5%, with upside from there on the Twins, White Sox, Brewers, and now the Blue Jays as well, albeit via more of a Hail Mary route. Tomorrow, hopefully there’s AL Central value, or at least a good opportunity to anchor with the Mets. Lots going on. Things are heating up.
Pick: Toronto to win +2000. Medium confidence.
World Series
There’s a lot going on here as far as our portfolio is concerned. Entering today, we had nothing down on either the Mariners or the Rays to win the World Series (though we’re healthy on each to win the ALCS), with each flashing positive value but only narrowly (the Mariners are showing a 4% eROI, the Rays are showing a 2% eROI—for context, the Blue Jays pick shows a 58% eROI). The Mariners are the better-value option, so we’re taking them, but even that doesn’t make them a profitable route for us, since we have so much down on the World Series as a whole. Ideally, we’d just bet double, but we’ve been good about sticking to two picks per weekday, and we don’t want to change that up this early in the game (this is helpful for showing us how replicable any success we achieve this year is). So, one pick on the Mariners, but we’ll be keeping an eye out for another chance with them tomorrow, as well as a chance to get the Rays into our mix.
Pick: Seattle to win +3500. Medium confidence.
