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 –0.8% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 5,198 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +3.1% across 1,643 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.
One MLB moneyline, a few MLB futures, and a little NFL. Here’s the context on each market.
Single-game MLB bets: On the season, we’re 97–73–5, we’re up 15.85 units, we’re up 9% (the average line on our winners has been –109). We managed to miss on Astros–Royals twice this weekend, but we like where the season has gone, and we’re excited about this final week as we decide whether or not to keep the single-game bets going into October.
MLB futures: We began the season with 750 units in our MLB futures portfolio, with the intent being to spend 500 of those over the regular season and keep 250 in reserve for the postseason and/or hedging & arbitrage opportunities. 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 104.42 units, or 13.9%.
Single-game NFL bets: On the season, we’re 3–6–3, we’re down 3.39 units, we’re down 28%. We’ve won both our Week 3 picks so far, though, and our pick covered yesterday’s spread by 44.5 points, which I think should get us extra credit.
Arizona @ New York (AL)
Apologies for the last-minute nature here, but we like the Yankees most out of all options today. They’ve had a good September, their bullpen’s pretty fresh, there’s no body-clock concern on their side, Clarke Schmidt is fine, and sometimes the trend where playoff teams finish strong can be taken more extremely than its track record warrants. We like the better team to win today, even if they’re a few games worse in the standings.
Pick: New York (AL) to win +108. Low confidence. (Kelly and Schmidt must start.)
AL West
We dabbled in some of this over the weekend, but we’re hitting it hard today, with a correlated bet to come. The value’s there, and we’ve been very low on the Rangers in our portfolio. This helps on all fronts. Twenty units on Texas.
Pick: Texas to win –425. Medium confidence. x10
MLB Playoffs
We’re doubling up on this, and part of it is as a hedge against the Rangers leverage but the price is such that both are valuable. With tons of upside still around on the Mariners winning the AL West, we’re also protected in the instance in which the Mariners come back to win the division and the Astros do miss the playoffs. In fact, that scenario is a very good one for us. All season, we try to keep ourselves in a position to avoid losing money on the regular season portion of the portfolio while preserving value for ourselves. This is when we cash in. If you’re new to the bets, join us on the MLB futures next year. It’s a good time.
Pick: Houston to make playoffs –117. Medium confidence. x2
ALCS
Houston and Texas, in our ALCS portfolio, are close enough that one is going to be unprofitable right now and one is going to be profitable if we continue to avoid betting on anything negative-value in postseason markets. We’re choosing to leave the downside on Houston rather than Texas, because Houston’s downside (–1.5 units) is smaller than Texas’s was entering the day (–2 units), and because in general, making positive-value bets is the way to go.
Pick: Texas to win +400. Medium confidence.
LA Rams @ Cincinnati
This is scary and I do not like it, but the Bengals have played badly these last two weeks, Joe Burrow has played badly these last two weeks, and if Joe Burrow plays tonight he’s going to be playing hurt. This feels like one where we just have to bite the bullet and reject all instinct.
Pick: LA Rams +3 (–110). Low confidence.
