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 –2.0% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 7,648 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.6% across 2,293 completed high and medium-confidence picks. The low confidence picks are the problem. Most of our picks are in the low confidence category.
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 from 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. We rely heavily on FanGraphs for all our MLB action. We rely heavily on Nate Silver’s presidential election model for our election futures.
Active markets today: Single-game MLB bets, election futures.
Single-day MLB bets: Last year, we finished the season up about 8%, betting strictly moneylines. We’re 118–105–3 so far this year, down 11.11 units. We’re trying three new approaches, something we started on Thursday. So far, that effort is 4–2, up 1.56 units. That is a very small sample, of course, and there’s a long way to go before we’re back even on the year.
Election futures: These have been our best market historically, with a 17% overall ROI and significant profits both times we’ve done them—in 2020 and 2022. We started this year with a 1,000-unit portfolio and a plan to bet it as a series of 20 mini-portfolios, each leveraged against itself. We’re still approaching it in that manner, with most mini-portfolios placed and published on Saturdays. So far, we’re up 18.50 units. Those are going back into the bets.
Chicago (NL) @ Chicago (AL)
The first of our three new MLB moneyline approaches is to reference something we call Heat Index. It’s a measurement of how well teams have played over the last month-ish of action. The biggest gap in Heat Index today is again between the Cubs and White Sox. The Cubs aren’t particularly hot—they’ve hit and pitched right around the league average since the All-Star Break—but the White Sox are extraordinarily cold.
Is this approach going to lead to a lot of bets on the White Sox?
Yes.
They don’t play tomorrow, but we’re guessing we’ll be betting on them all of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday as they play the hot Yankees.
Pick: Chicago (NL) to win –212. Low confidence. (Steele and Flexen must start.)
Pittsburgh @ Los Angeles
The second new approach is to look for the Smallest Favorite. That designation has bounced around a little today, but at closing odds for games that already began and current odds for games yet to start, it’s the Dodgers.
Imagine getting the Dodgers at –107 at home against the Pirates. The line might be good and might be bad, but what this really means is that Paul Skenes is something else.
Pick: Los Angeles to win –107. Low confidence. (Skenes and Ryan must start.)
Atlanta @ Colorado
The third new approach is to use our old approach but only look for an underdog. We’re referring to it as Dogs Only. The Rockies make very little sense today—cold themselves, facing Max Fried, and just a terrible team. Fried, though, hasn’t been as good as his projections this year, and nobody is expecting anything big out of Dakota Hudson. Even so, systems like FanGraphs’s win probabilities reflect value here on the home team. The Rockies won last night without burning as valuable of bullpen as their guests. They’re the only Dog who fits our old approach.
Pick: Colorado to win +165. Low confidence. (Fried and Hudson must start.)
2024 U.S. Presidential Election
Since last week, the polls have moved a bit more towards Kamala Harris, especially in swing states. Markets have also moved, but not by as much as Nate Silver’s model. The result is an environment where there’s good value available in state-specific Democratic betting but we have to find longshots to balance out this mini-portfolio.
We’re going to start with a Democratic longshot because it’s one of the best-value options out there today. Iowa is highly unlikely to go blue, but the possibility of a Harris landslide is realer than people might imagine, especially given Trump’s age and reported frustration with how effectively his campaign is responding to the change in Democratic nominee. This is only two units, but we’ll add it to Alaska, Maine’s second Congressional district, and a Democratic haul in the electoral college (we have two units on over 349.5 electoral votes) as our high-upside options on the blue end of things.
Pick: Democratic Candidate to win Iowa +1100. Medium confidence.
From there, we turn our attention to the Republican side. One of the silly markets out there right now is the electoral college/popular vote combination. There is almost no way Donald Trump wins the popular vote without also winning the electoral college. Still, odds are meaningfully longer here than they are on Trump to win the popular vote, and even those underrate the possibility Trump does pull this out. How would that happen? There are numerous individual, unlikely ways. A major recession shaking up the race. Harris antipathy returning to the zeitgeist after this honeymoon period. A hurricane hitting New York City on Election Day. An unusually large polling error. Together, these add up to a decent enough probability to create very good value.
In addition to our effective Trump electoral college/popular vote parlay, we’ll bet on him to garner 312 or more electoral votes. The upside here is high enough to pay for the swing state bets our broader portfolio needs.
Pick: Republican Candidate to win both popular vote and electoral college +300. Medium confidence. x3
Pick: Republican Candidate over 311.5 electoral votes +425. Medium confidence. x3
As for the swing states…
In each mini-portfolio, we try to set ourselves to profit in at least three scenarios: a Democratic sweep, a Republican sweep, and a sweep by current favorites. Still, we do have some vulnerable scenarios in our broader portfolio. Specifically, if Harris wins Georgia, we’re set up to be in a little bit of trouble, especially in the very niche scenario where she loses Pennsylvania or another of the Rust Belt swing states.
The value isn’t there today on Georgia itself. But. We can strengthen our position in that scenario anyway. If Harris does win Georgia, she’ll likely win three or four of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Arizona as well. There’s value available on her in those four states.
Ten units on Michigan. Eight units on Wisconsin. Fourteen units on Pennsylvania. Eight units on Arizona.
We do still have that vulnerability, but this dampens it, and it’s only one step toward that end. Right now, the worst realistic case is that we lose 2% of our portfolio. If we carve as much off that number next week as we did today, the worst case will become something very close to breaking even.
Pick: Democratic Candidate to win Michigan –170. Medium confidence. x5
Pick: Democratic Candidate to win Wisconsin –130. Medium confidence. x4
Pick: Democratic Candidate to win Pennsylvania –125. Medium confidence. x7
Pick: Democratic Candidate to win Arizona +135. Medium confidence. x4
