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 -5.0% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 3,526 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of 0.7% across 871 completed high and medium-confidence picks (low confidence picks, these days, are in experimental markets for us). Our ETA to get the overall number back profitable is currently November 5th, the date of a potential World Series Game 7.
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. FiveThirtyEight’s SPI is heavily used in making soccer picks. ESPN’s FPI is heavily used in making NFL picks.
Just MLB futures today. Unit context: We started the MLB season with 520 units available to bet on our two-bets-a-day, five-days-a-week cadence, plus another 520 available in reserve for hedges.
NLCS
The Phillies have nearly held off the Brewers, and yet the pair’s futures odds are similar at some books, which doesn’t make sense. That doesn’t necessarily mean the Phillies are a good bet—the Brewers might just be ridiculously expensive, probably due to too many bets going in on them a few weeks ago—but in the end, yes, the Phillies are a good bet. The odds on the Phillies/Cardinals series should be tighter than they’re being implied to be, and the market should subsequently correct.
Meanwhile, we still like the Padres, who were always going to have a terrible path but remain a great baseball team on paper. We trust paper. We get the doubt, but we trust paper.
Pick: San Diego to win +1400. Medium confidence.
Pick: Philadelphia to win +2200. Medium confidence.
