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 3,379 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.
Just MLB futures Monday through Friday these days. For context on these: We started the season with 520 units in our MLB futures portfolio, with another 520 in reserve in case we need them for hedging down the line.
AL Central
Were there not new value on this next one, we’d be cornering the AL Central market today. As is, we’re cutting our worst case there by more than half, while bringing our worst realistic case on the division portion of the portfolio to a -7.7% return. There are currently twelve possible division winner possibilities if each eventual champion is more than 10% likely to win as of today, per FanGraphs. In all of these but those where the White Sox and Cardinals each win their Central division, we’re profitable.
Pick: Chicago to win +185. Medium confidence.
ALCS
The Mariners’ winning streak is outpacing the market, which is nice for us as they further crowd out the possibility of the White Sox or Twins taking a wild card spot, something which would hurt us as those are two complete holes in our portfolio. Of the nine teams more than 6% likely to make the playoffs in the AL, per FanGraphs, we have at least something on seven of them to win the ALCS, and we’re in a position to profit on six of those, a number which now includes the West’s hottest team.
Pick: Seattle to win +3300. Medium confidence.
