Wrong again yesterday, this time about Sandy Alcantara. We’re on another MLB moneyline today, and then we’ve got our first NHL and NBA futures of the season. For some context on those two: We’re planning on placing one future a day in each sport between now and the end of their respective Finals. To start, the futures will be two units each. That will change as early series returns come in and we start leveraging bets against one another. Overall, we’re budgeting 200 units for each of the two portfolios.
St. Louis at New York (NL)
Still nothing that fits our criteria, but this one’s close. The only thing we dislike is that Kodai Senga’s had a better xERA and FIP so far than his FanGraphs-projected FIP. At the same time, though, Matthew Liberatore’s been better than his. When necessary, we allow this kind of thing to cancel itself out.
For the sake of a Liberatore/Senga comparison:
Liberatore’s supposed to be a 3.99-FIP pitcher, on average. He’s only supposed to make 16 starts, though, with most of his outings coming out of the bullpen. That probably makes FanGraphs slightly boost his FIP, since it’s easier to get outs in relief than as a starter, when hitters see pitchers for longer and pitchers have more time to tire. Thankfully, he’s been great so far this year, with a 1.94 FIP and 3.40 xERA while averaging more than six innings per start. On Sunday, he struck out seven Phillies in six innings of work, walking just one and allowing no runs. In his first two starts—against the Angels and Pirates—he struck out eleven, walked none, and allowed just one home run, though he did allow eight earned runs across those two outings.
Senga’s supposed to be a 3.82-FIP pitcher, and he too is supposed to make some bullpen appearances in his projection. I’m surprised by this, but the Mets do have a lot of starting pitching options when everyone’s healthy. Either way, Senga’s FIP is boosted in those FanGraphs Depth Charts projections by the expectation of bullpen appearances, though not to the same degree as Liberatore. In reality, Senga’s got a 2.80 FIP and 2.73 xERA across 5.2 innings pitched per start. Two of those starts did come against the Marlins, but on Sunday in Sacramento, he held the A’s scoreless for seven innings, striking out four and walking two.
Senga is definitely a better pitcher than Liberatore. But he’s not that much better. The Mets do have a better lineup, and they’re playing at home, so it’s not like we think this should be closer to a tossup. But 60/40? That would probably be more reasonable.
Pick: St. Louis to win +166. 15.00 units to win 24.90. Liberatore and Senga must start.
NBA Western Conference
We’re using Neil Paine’s model as our basis for the NBA futures again this year. We’d love to build our own model, but The Barking Crow’s overall business plan is more focused on college sports right now. The other thing to note is that at least for today, we limited ourselves to things with better than a 1-in-50 chance of happening, and that we went looking for a team playing today, since we don’t expect today’s games to dramatically impact futures odds on the teams playing tomorrow.
All of that leaves us with the Timberwolves, who are a road underdog against the Lakers but should be favored in their home games. It hasn’t been a great season for Minnesota, and the “vibes” aren’t there to the extent they were last year, but for as good as Luka Dončić is, we do think the T-Wolves can get through this series. If they do get through, the path’s not terrible. It’s tough, but they don’t have to play the Thunder right away, giving other teams chances to knock Oklahoma City out.
We aren’t saying the Timberwolves are going to win the West. We’re saying the value here’s good enough to let it bat leadoff for us this postseason.
Pick: Minnesota to win +2000. 2.00 units to win 40.00.
NHL Western Conference
On the NHL side, we use our own Gelo model. It’s done well the last two years after a bad performance in 2022.
What we like about this one is that it isn’t specifically about the Blues. Gelo also thinks the Jets are undervalued relative to where the market has them. Gelo, in fact, has the Jets as the Stanley Cup favorite. There’s so much attention on the Avalanche and the Stars that it’s leaving value on the rest of the Central Division’s corner of the bracket.
That leads us to think that even if the Jets do take an early lead in this series, we might be able to get value on them down the line. For now, we’ll grab the biggest value we see on a team whose odds should be affected by today’s games.
Pick: St. Louis to win +1800. 2.00 units to win 36.00.
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I am only roughly 90% confident in these numbers. We’ll get that Google Sheet up soon which tracks all our bets this year.
2025: –114.49 units (started with 1,000-unit bankroll)
2025: –3% average ROI (weighted by unit; sample size: 299 single-game markets plus one completed futures portfolio)
Pre-2025: 0% average ROI (worse when limited to only sports)
Units taken from best odds we can find at major sportsbooks available to most Americans.
These bets are not investment advice. If you’re worried you or someone you know might have a gambling addiction, call 1-800-GAMBLER for free, confidential help.
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