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 7,624 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 moneylines and futures.
Single-day MLB bets: Last year, we finished the season up about 8%, betting strictly moneylines. We’ve tried a similar approach this year. We’re 106–93–3 so far, down 8.82 units. We’ve gotten within reach of profitability a few times this year, but we haven’t been able to sustain a surge.
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.
Kansas City @ Chicago (AL)
The Royals have a bullpen problem, with multiple key relievers banged up. Chris Flexen, though, is struggling, and so are the White Sox, and honestly, there isn’t much good on the board today ahead of tomorrow’s trade deadline. If we could get odds on the Guardians, we’d look at that, but we can’t, and it might rain in Detroit tonight anyway.
Pick: Kansas City to win –169. Low confidence. (Marsh and Flexen must start.)
World Series
There’s value on the Yankees to win the World Series, and I think this is the first time we’ve been able to say that all year. It’s not huge, but it’s clearly positive, and the easy explanation for its appearance is that the market was slow to react to their wins the last two days. Any positive value we can take on one of the favorites, we will take. We’re in a fine place overall, but we’re longshot-heavy right now. Raising the floor helps deflate the hedging question down the line.
Pick: New York (AL) to win +700. Medium confidence. x2
