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 –0.9% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 5,306 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.6% across 1,730 completed high and medium-confidence picks (low confidence picks, these days, are in experimental markets for us).
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 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. FanGraphs is heavily used in making MLB picks. Movelor is heavily used in making college football picks, with some references to ESPN’s FPI and SP+. FPI is heavily used in making NFL picks, especially futures.
A bet for Monday Night Football, plus today’s MLB futures. Here’s the context on each market.
Single-game NFL bets: On the season, we’re 3–7–5, we’re down 4.39 units, we’re down 29%. I have no idea how we’ve pushed so many bets. This is an absurd number of bets to push.
MLB futures: We began the season with 750 units in our MLB futures portfolio. This is circular, because we use FanGraphs probabilities to guide our picks, but if we use FanGraphs probabilities and include today’s plays, our mean expected return on the 750 units (based on what we’ve bet so far) is 87.53 units, or 11.7%. Apologies for the AL West fiasco. I messed that up down the stretch. Good time to be reminded to be careful with hedging math, though. There’s a lot of that ahead, and we won’t mess it up and forfeit our leverage this time like we did last time.
Seattle @ NY Giants
We’re going against the late line movement here, not sure what’s driving it and not finding anything convincing. Neither of these teams has been especially consistent in what they’ve shown over the early season, but given we trust neither and view each’s ceiling at a similar 8 or 9-win level, we’ll ride with the guys at home.
Pick: NY Giants +2.5 (–105). Low confidence.
Wild Card Series
We like all the underdogs in these series, at least by seed line (the Blue Jays are favored over the Twins in some places but we aren’t seeing arbitrage opportunities). In order by gametime tomorrow:
- Jordan Montgomery finished the season allowing two runs over 27 innings across his final four starts. Tyler Glasnow has had some home run issues and some walk issues in September, and he’s already past his career high in innings pitched. If the Rays win the first six innings tomorrow, we really like their chances over the series, but markets seem to be overvaluing Glasnow’s potential and undervaluing Montgomery’s performance.
- The Blue Jays are a better team than the Twins, a healthier team than the Twins, and a team with fewer things in their head about this than the Twins, in case you put any stock in this last one. They lose the starting pitching advantage, at least relatively, if they don’t win Game 1, but the Blue Jays are well-equipped to win that Game 1. Kevin Gausman will be pitching with plenty of rest.
- Brandon Woodruff’s injury is a disaster for the Brewers. The Diamondbacks had to burn more pitching this weekend than they wanted to, but that puts them in a position where if they do win Game 1, they’re going to be a bigger favorite than the 75% number a 1–0 lead implies. Also, Brandon Pfaadt has the prospect pedigree and the recent results you want here if you’re an Arizona backer.
- The odds are just too long against the Marlins. The gap is not wide enough to justify that line on a 3-game set.
Overall, if we win two of these, the four profit as a whole. We like that setup, even if this is a small amount of doubling down on teams we already preferred (we’re pretty neutral between the Blue Jays and the Twins, though we lean towards supporting Minnesota).
Pick: Texas to win +150. Medium confidence.
Pick: Toronto to win +100. Medium confidence.
Pick: Arizona to win +155. Medium confidence.
Pick: Miami to win +180. Medium confidence.
ALCS
We’re seeing value on the Rays in this market, and we’ll gladly take it, with Tampa Bay our biggest AL liability and those two units down on Texas to win that series. The value is narrow, but we’ll put a little down here and see what the market does overnight.
Pick: Tampa Bay to win +550. Medium confidence.
World Series
The value’s back on Atlanta, which is a good lesson to not trust FanGraphs too heavily when it comes to probabilities during the last week of the season. We don’t regret what we put on the Dodgers, but we’ll pivot back a little here. If the Orioles, Blue Jays, or Twins makes it through the AL against Atlanta, we’re in good shape, but we have ground to make up if it’s Texas, Houston, or Tampa Bay.
Pick: Atlanta to win +300. Medium confidence.
