It’s Opening Day, and our regular readers know that means our MLB futures portfolio is back.
We’re coming off an embarrassing, disappointing, regrettable MLB futures performance. After years of mostly breaking even and occasionally profiting greatly, we left ourselves exposed to a Dodgers/Yankees World Series, then left ourselves exposed to the Dodgers winning said World Series quickly. Our logic had always been that value was value and if the 1-in-8 possibility became likely, we could use our amassed value to hedge our way out of danger. That logic was flawed. So, this year, we’ll be working more on increasing our profit probability and less on increasing our total value. This matches the “futures portfolio” idea better anyway. If the point was purely value, we shouldn’t be worried about a portfolio at all. We should be placing isolated futures.
We’ve also got an Opening Day moneyline, Sweet Sixteen picks, and another college basketball future. We lost Kent State (and their 200-to-1 upside) from the NIT side of our mini-portfolio last night. We’ve still got Chattanooga (three units at 80-to-1) and UC Irvine (twenty units at effectively +362.5) alive on that front.
AL East
Our MLB futures portfolio is slated to be about 750 units large this year. We’re not putting an exact number on it because our various portfolios are more unified under our 2025 approach of starting with a limited number of total units. With some units set aside for September and October flexibility, that rounds out to about twenty units per week.
We trust FanGraphs’s Playoff Odds for this exercise. It’s always our starting point. Today, those probabilities point to the Blue Jays as the most valuable team across all three futures categories (Division, LCS, World Series). But it has them the most valuable here, in the division market. There’s a pessimism around this team, but the lineup is very good. I don’t think people realize quite how well Vlad Guerrero Jr. hit last year. I don’t think people realize how primed Andrés Giménez is to bounce back. There are big, obvious reasons to get behind the Orioles, Yankees, and Red Sox. Those are easy to overblow. 13-to-1’s a great price to lead us off.
Pick: Toronto to win +1300. 2.00 units to win 26.00.
NLCS
We’re a few bounces here and there from the Dodgers being the flash-in-the-pan, always-injured would-be dynasty and the Braves being the unstoppable wagon. We spend April spreading the units around across teams and markets, trying to build a big base. I’d imagine that when we start doubling up, we’re going to be looking to get a lot of early value on the best roster in the NL East. They’re very good on paper, and the health should balance out.
Pick: Atlanta to win +550. 2.00 units to win 11.00.
Baltimore at Toronto
Having said those nice things about the Blue Jays, we’re taking the Orioles to win today. José Berríos often gets overvalued, and while Gunnar Henderson’s injury is a gigantic deal, it’s baked into the FanGraphs projections which ever so slightly call this number positive EV. There’s not a lot to love in today’s moneyline markets, but we like this.
Pick: Baltimore to win +104. 15.00 units to win 15.60. (Eflin and Berríos must start.)
Alabama vs. BYU
Pivoting to basketball…
We understand the draw on the over here. That’s why we’re betting the under.
Pick: Under 175.5 (–110). 10.00 units to win 9.09.
Florida vs. Maryland
The question with this one is how much the Kevin Willard distraction will affect Maryland. We’re more worried about it affecting Willard than his players, but that effect should be real.
The issue is that everything else narrowly points towards Maryland being the play. We’re going to trust the fundamentals (a kenpom/Nate Silver combo) and ride with the Terps.
Pick: Maryland +6.5 (–105). 10.00 units to win 9.52.
Duke vs. Arizona
Like Alabama/BYU, we can understand how the public would like Duke here.
Pick: Arizona +9.5 (–110). 10.00 units to win 9.09.
Texas Tech vs. Arkansas
This is even harder than the Maryland pick. How we get to the under:
- Kenpom and Nate Silver are split.
- Silver likes Arkansas by more than kenpom likes Texas Tech.
- Silver has a large injury deduction baked in for Arkansas.
- That all combines to point towards Arkansas, but:
- We don’t know what exactly Silver thinks Arkansas’s getting from Thiero and Boogie Fland, and we don’t know what exactly Silver thinks Texas Tech’s getting from Chance McMillian. Is there a gradient aspect to Silver’s injury approach? Or is it black and white? Basically: We don’t know what exactly we’d be following if we were to follow this pick.
- The total’s only one point lower than the kenpom total.
- Adou Thiero probably isn’t going to play at full strength.
- Thiero should help Arkansas’s offense more than its defense, based on EvanMiya’s numbers.
- Between the ball and the injury, we think we can squeeze a point and a half off the total. This isn’t ideal, but if we’re placing something, this is probably the thing to place.
Pick: Under 147 (–105). 10.00 units to win 9.52.
NCAA Tournament
Our probabilities show the biggest value here on Tennessee, followed by Michigan State. Our other NCAAT unit is down on the Vols, so we turn our attention to Sparty, who…yep. Good enough team. Good enough path. Great to be on the opposite side of the bracket from Duke and Houston.
We wouldn’t pick Michigan State to win it all in any sort of pool. But we like the value on this enough to let it rip. 25-to-1 is a long price.
Pick: Michigan State to win +2500. 1.00 unit to win 25.00.
**
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: –262.97 units (started with 1,000-unit bankroll)
2025: –9% average ROI (weighted by unit; sample size: 230 single-game markets plus one half-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.
**
