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 -4% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 2,894 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.
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 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.
All losses on motorsports yesterday, which was grim. Had Charles Leclerc, Kyle Larson, Tony Kanaan, and Felix Rosenqvist, each of whom had a good opportunity to win, but no dice on any breaking through, and as we’ve written before, that doesn’t necessarily mean we were unlucky: That’s the nature of motorsports. Gelo gets a Game 7 tonight, so we have action on that, plus more NHL futures and our first MLB futures of the new week. Let’s get to it. (For futures portfolio context: The NHL futures bankroll started at 100 units, with another 100 in reserve in case of hedging need; The MLB futures bankroll started at 520 units, with another 520 in reserve in case of hedging need.)
New York Rangers @ Carolina
This is a little bit of an interesting study of Gelo: Gelo projected 5.71 goals on Saturday in New York. Seven goals were scored. It now projects 5.72 goals tonight in Raleigh, and the odds didn’t change at all. Does this tell us something? Only how little individual results move both Gelo and the market.
We’re rolling with the double-long odds approach, with a decent probability of hitting at least one. We know the Hurricanes are 7-0 at home these playoffs, but is that trend really an end-all-be-all? Unders were 5-0 on the series before Game 6, after all. This is, more likely than not, where the value lies, and we’ll take our chances on it.
Pick: New York Rangers to win +126. Low confidence.
Pick: Over 5.5 (+117). Low confidence.
Stanley Cup
We were tempted to hedge today. We are tempted to hedge today. We can get the Hurricanes at 7-to-1 to win the Stanley Cup, five units on that doesn’t make them purely a profitable path for us but it closes the gap by a good margin, it’s not a huge cost.
We’re laying off.
The Rangers have put themselves in a valuable position for us, and if they do win tonight—and everyone, including the market, seems to agree that’s a reasonable possibility—we’ll be riding high heading into the conference finals, with the Avalanche our only liability, making the situation much more straightforward than one in which the Avalanche and the Canes are both liabilities. With that the good-case scenario, and with a Hurricanes/Avalanche Finals possibility the bad-case scenario, we’ll let it ride for another night, recognizing we’re taking on some risk in doing that.
Either way, there’s good value on the Oilers today and it doesn’t hurt us one bit to take it. We’ll reassess the situation tomorrow when we know more.
Pick: Edmonton to win +500. Low confidence.
Pick: Edmonton to win +500. Low confidence.
AL East
The Blue Jays’ surge continues. They’ve won five straight, they’re just a game back of the Rays for second in the division, and they’re only five and a half back now of the Yankees, with more than four months of baseball to be played. Given how good they are on paper, and given the more uncertain elements of the Yankees’ situation, it’s a good time to beef up our Toronto portion in this market.
Pick: Toronto to win +350. Medium confidence.
ALCS
Low value here, but value, and with nothing else so far on the Red Sox to take the pennant, we’ll add it.
Pick: Boston to win +2200. Medium confidence.
