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% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 3,421 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of 0.1% across 773 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, and for unit context on these: We started the season with 520 units available to bet on our two-bets-a-day, five-days-a-week cadence, with another 520 available in reserve for hedges.
NLCS
There’s value available in the markets today on San Diego, Toronto, Philadelphia, Tampa Bay, Atlanta, and these guys. We’ve been prioritizing higher value lately, but we’re going to go with breadth again today, as we did on Friday. There’s a cost to hedging, and since hedging is part of the approach, some diversification helps reduce the total number of hedges necessary, which in turn helps reduce that cost. Our target is something like a 250-unit profit. Right now, the Padres, Blue Jays, Phillies, and Rays winning the World Series would each hit that target for us with a little room to spare (allowing for a small loss elsewhere, or more realistically, more hedging). These guys wouldn’t hit that target, so we’re going to put a little more on them.
Pick: New York to win +300. Medium confidence.
World Series
It’s the same idea here. We put so much into Atlanta winning the World Series early in the year that we’re close to the target already, but more is useful. This leaves us close, but not quite to that 250 number.
Pick: Atlanta to win +800. Medium confidence.
