Nice little win last night. Now, for the big stuff: It’s October for our MLB futures portfolio.
We’re going to include some moneylines, at least at the start of the postseason. These are a little complicated because the impact of each game on our futures portfolio is so large. Some bets could be redundant, and some could be counterproductive, and we’ll be considering that but only to an extent. So, keep that in mind if you follow our moneylines but not our futures. The moneylines are second fiddle right now.
World Series
Starting, then, with the futures: FanGraphs is showing positive value on the Dodgers to win the World Series. This is a little misleading—if you account for Hunter Greene starting tonight, the Dodgers’ value drops into territory where it’s unclear if it’s really positive or not—but with little value elsewhere that helps our portfolio, we’re going to take this. If the Reds knock out the Dodgers, that’s fine by us. We can probably get good Reds prices in the next round. With both those teams a liability, we’re going to tackle the more dangerous of the two.
Pick: Los Angeles to win +550. 4.00 units to win 22.00.
Game 1: Boston at New York (AL)
Garrett Crochet’s had a phenomenal season, and despite posting his highest innings total by a wide margin, he finished the year strong.
But.
Max Fried also has had a phenomenal season, and Max Fried also finished the year strong, and this single game which is Crochet’s postseason debut and is not Fried’s postseason debut, you’d probably rather have Max Fried.
This line is pricing in an assumption that the Red Sox are in the Yankees’ heads. It’s a fair assumption, but it’s easy to overblow. We’ll take the home team in Game 1. We think they’re more than 57% likely to win this.
Pick: New York to win –130. 4.68 units to win 3.60. Crochet and Fried must start.
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I am only roughly 90% confident in these numbers. At some point we’ll get that Google Sheet up which tracks all our bets this year.
2025–26: –417.99 units (started with 1,000-unit bankroll)
2025–26: –6% average ROI (weighted by unit; sample size: 804 single-game markets plus three completed futures portfolios and one partly 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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