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 –2.6% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 7,468 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.2% 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. We’re relying on Neil Paine’s NBA forecast as the basis for our playoff futures portfolio. We use our own Gelo model as the basis for our NHL playoff futures portfolio.
Active markets today: Major League Baseball moneylines and futures. That is all. We’ve decided to let the NBA portfolio ride rather than hedging against our Celtics position. (The NHL portfolio continues to ride as well.)
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 70–66 so far, down 6.50 units. It’s been a terrible performance, one in which every sign of progress has been met with a swift comedown. To pick a selective sample, though, we’re 21–11 over the last thirteen days, and we’ve cut our deficit significantly over that timeframe. All other selective samples are worse for us.
St. Louis @ Miami
This is one where the number on paper is much closer, but the Marlins are cold, the Cardinals are getting a lot out of their role players, and Sonny Gray’s been great. Braxton Garrett isn’t as bad as his ERA indicates, but he hasn’t been good.
Pick: St. Louis to win –150. Low confidence. (Gray and Garrett must start.)
San Diego @ Philadelphia
Also not good so far this year is Randy Vásquez. We’re not too concerned about Cristopher Sánchez’s mediocre outing last week. It was only one start, he should be back in his routine now, and it wasn’t even that bad.
Pick: Philadelphia to win –188. Low confidence. (Vásquez and Sánchez must start.)
NL East
The Mets are behind the Nationals in the standings, a full two weeks’ worth of games behind the Phillies for the lead in the NL East.
250-to-1 is a big, big number, though.
The Mets winning the division is possible enough to, in a portfolio approach like this one, warrant taking a flyer on it. Their roster is a .500 roster, the Phillies have probably overachieved to this point, and the National League’s softness could lead to the Mets buying at the deadline to chase a Wild Card spot. Plus, there’s still positive eROI available on the Phillies because books are swinging back towards the Braves in an attempt to cover themselves now that the Braves finally had a good offensive weekend. So, we’ll keep chipping away on Philadelphia, but we’re getting in on the Mets as well in this market.
Pick: New York (NL) to win +25000. Medium confidence.
Pick: Philadelphia to win –350. Medium confidence.
