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 7,669 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: Election futures and single-game MLB bets.
Single-day MLB bets: Last year, we finished the season up about 8%, betting strictly moneylines. We’re 131–113–3 so far this year, down 7.76 units. We’re trying three new approaches, something we started last Thursday. So far, that effort is 17–10, up 5.11 units. It’s still a small sample, but it’s been a nice nine days.
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 (AL) @ Houston
With last night’s loss, Heat Index is no longer our best-performing approach of the three new ones. Still, it’s gone 7–2 and it’s up 2.88 units. We’re going to stick with it, even if we wish it would point us towards something with a higher payout than another bet against the White Sox.
Heat Index has the gap in this one at 40 percentage points and the Padres/Rockies gap at 39 percentage points, so there’s a chance this slot flips before tomorrow. Of course, there’s also a chance we add a second Heat Index pick in place of the underdog approach, but we’ll cross that bridge if we build it.
Pick: Houston to win –360. Low confidence. (Flexen and Brown must start.)
Arizona @ Tampa Bay
I don’t trust this, but betting the smallest favorite on the board has also gone 7–2 for us, and by virtue of always returning close to 0.95 units when it hits, it’s up 4.49 units over these nine days. Today, it leads us to the Diamondbacks after last night’s tough loss in Florida. We could do worse than ride with Zac Gallen.
Pick: Arizona to win –106. Low confidence. (Gallen and Springs must start.)
Los Angeles @ St. Louis
Our underdogs are only 3–6, down 2.26 units. Still, their run differential is +4, which makes us too hesitant to pause it just yet. If we were to pause, we probably wouldn’t fade it—as we mentioned above, we’d probably try adding Heat Index’s second option—but that does remain an option.
Why does our system like the Cardinals? Bobby Miller’s underperformed his projections, Andre Pallante has overperformed his, and the Cardinals’ bullpen isn’t that tired after last night. There are red flags: Some of Pallante’s stats cover time as a reliever, which is different; Miller’s returning from a stint in Triple-A and should theoretically have regained some upside; the Cardinals are at a disadvantage on the bullpen and health fronts. But this is the best we can do as far as an underdog goes.
Pick: St. Louis to win +120. Low confidence. (Miller and Pallante must start.)
2024 U.S. Presidential Election
First: This week’s mini-portfolio has another 30% return if favorites win. If it’s a Republican landslide or a Democratic landslide, the return is around even, but our overall portfolio—the combination of all these mini-portfolios—is well-equipped for landslides. Where it’s vulnerable is a few specific middle scenarios, things like Kamala Harris winning Arizona but not Georgia or Kamala Harris winning Georgia but not Pennsylvania. We’re keeping each mini-portfolio solid, but we’re trying to balance our portfolio out across the board.
With that…this week’s plays.
Leading off, you can still get odds on Trump to win both the popular vote and the electoral college, even though the chance of him winning the popular vote without winning the electoral college is minimal. The odds on Trump winning the popular vote are great—there’s still a lot of time for weird things to happen—but the odds on him winning the popular vote and also winning the election are even better. Four units.
Pick: Republican Candidate to win Popular Vote & Electoral College +365. Medium confidence. x2
The value isn’t as good here, but there’s at least a little value on Trump to win Virginia, and with so much of our portfolio concentrated on Harris winning Virginia, we’ll take the opportunity to reduce that downside. Again, four units.
Pick: Republican Candidate to win Virginia +440. Medium confidence. x2
This is the biggest play on the GOP side, and it’s not all that big. Twelve units on Ohio, paying out only 1.4 units when it most likely hits. Ohio isn’t really a swing state—Nate Silver’s model currently projects it to run to the right of all of Iowa, Texas, Florida, Alaska, and northern Maine—but it’s still treated like one by some bettors. We’re using it as an anchor, the same way we used New Jersey and Virginia earlier in the cycle on the Democratic side. If Trump loses Ohio, we’ll have already made plenty off the landslide scenario. This boosts all our other scenarios by that extra little bit.
Pick: Republican Candidate to win Ohio –850. Medium confidence. x6
We’re only making one Democratic play this week, and that’s because the Democratic value available today is mostly confined to longshot scenarios like those in Iowa, Alaska, and northern Maine. This is one of the few instances of Democratic value that’s actually likely to hit. 34 units on it helps us in those scenarios we described above while bringing this mini-portfolio’s return in the all–favorites–win scenario up to that 30% number we generally target with election bets.
Pick: Democratic Candidate to win Wisconsin –150. Medium confidence. x17
