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 –0.6% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 5,093 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +3.1% across 1,617 completed high and medium-confidence picks (low confidence picks, these days, are in experimental markets for us).
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 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. FanGraphs is heavily used in making MLB picks.
Our MLB futures are off for the weekend, as usual, but we do have a moneyline there in addition to our college football bets. Here’s the context on each market.
Single-game MLB bets: On the season, we’re 84–57–4, we’re up 21.05 units, we’re up 15% (the average line on our winners has been –108). We’re riding an eight-game winning streak heading into today.
College football futures: We’re starting the season with 300 units in our college football futures portfolio, with the intent being to spend 200 of those over the next fifteen weeks and keep 100 in reserve for hedging and arbitrage opportunities. We will be leaning heavily on Movelor for these.
Single-game college football bets: Nothing yet. We’re leading off the season today. Got three picks, including one at the FCS level.
Colorado @ Baltimore
This doesn’t quite fit our parameters. It comes close, but it doesn’t fit them. The Red Sox and Padres both fit our parameters, but we aren’t taking those. We like this more. It’s low upside, but we think it’s safer value.
In the past, we’ve struggled mightily down the stretch with our picks in both Major League Baseball and college basketball. I think our issue with those has been being too beholden to the parameters which worked well early in the season. So, this time, we’re trying to be more flexible, and I think that deserves some of the credit for our success this August. We’ll look to continue it today, betting that the market is overrating the single-game impact of Felix Bautista’s injury from last night.
Pick: Baltimore –285. Low confidence. (Flexen and Bradish must start.)
College Football Playoff
We’re putting 18 units down this week, which is more than we’ll average but makes sense as a starting point, given a lot of these are anchors. We’re exclusively picking teams to make the playoff, miss the playoff, and win the national championship. Most of these are misses. Let’s run through those first:
- Even optimists only have Clemson about 40% likely to win the ACC, and even optimists only have Clemson favored over Notre Dame and South Carolina by a little more than a touchdown each. Should they pull it off, they still might not be in at 12–1, with a realistic chance of the Big Ten and SEC each producing a second playoff-worthy team in addition to their champion. Clemson either needs to go undefeated or Clemson needs help.
- The same story is true for Florida State except their nonconference schedule includes one tougher game (LSU) and one game that’s probably easier (Florida). They have to play Clemson on the road, though, and believing in Florida State requires putting a lot of weight onto one season, last season, a season in which they went 10–3.
- Oklahoma and Texas A&M are easy to peg as misses. Each has a lot of talent, but each would have to get a lot better very quickly to make this field.
- Oregon is a lot like Oklahoma and Texas A&M, but is probably a better team than both of those, so they deserve us talking about their schedule. They have Texas Tech in Lubbock in nonconference play, they have to go to Salt Lake City and Seattle within the Pac-12, and they host USC and Oregon State. That’s just so many opportunities to slip up, and it doesn’t even include the Pac-12 Championship. There’s depth at the top of the Pac-12, and in this case it’s a little bad for playoff chances.
- LSU is a tough one, but we’re trusting Movelor here. If you take a really simplistic view of the Tigers’ schedule, you see them favored in ten games, an underdog in one (at Alabama), and a tossup against Florida State. Again, that’s really, really simplistic. In actuality, they likely have to either navigate a full SEC schedule plus FSU such that they finish 11–1 and miss the SEC Championship, or they have to go 12–0, or they have to knock off (probably) Georgia. LSU could be the third-best team in the country and still face a major uphill battle to make the field.
- I like Texas a lot to win the Big 12, but with Movelor about as high on them as the AP Poll is and still flashing big positive value at this price, we’re going against them here as well. It’s so hard to see them winning in Tuscaloosa, and if they don’t, there’s a good chance they need to win every single other game they play.
- Finally, USC: We don’t buy them, Movelor doesn’t buy them, I do think they’ll get every benefit of the doubt from the committee but we’ll be really surprised if they win twelve games. They’ve got a great first six weeks, but then four of their last six regular season games are at Notre Dame, home against Utah, home against Washington, and at Oregon. Then, there’s that Pac-12 Championship again. We like this price.
From a portfolio standpoint, the 16 units we have down on these eight teams to miss the playoff could only pay us 3.43 units. That isn’t a great payout in terms of its overall size, but it’s a 21% return on investment, and we only have to hit on seven of the eight to profit on the pack. If we hit on eight of the eight, we have some units to work with, which brings us to our deep balls for the week.
We have two longer shots this week. One’s on Utah to make the playoff. One’s on Tennessee to win the national championship.
Utah is bringing a lot of talent back from not only the Pac-12 champions but the best team in the Pac-12. Their schedule is tough—even in nonconference play they’ve got Florida, Baylor, and the eighth-best team in the FCS—but they are the Pac-12’s best team, and there’s a decent chance those visits to Washington and Oregon State don’t look as challenging when they arrive as they do right now. Also? Utah put up 43 and 47 on USC last year, and I don’t see that necessarily changing. They’ve got a great shot in Los Angeles.
We could see this thing pretty much bite the dust as soon as Thursday night, but it’s a risk we’re willing to take.
We’re taking Tennessee to win it all rather than make the playoff because unlike Utah, if Tennessee makes the playoff, they will be spectacularly good. It’s very unlikely—they’d probably have to go 2–1 against the other top three teams in the SEC—but if they get there, they’ll be among the favorites, and we’ll have wonderful leverage. The crux of our Tennessee argument is that individuals are not that important in college football, and that the program’s step forward last year should be attributed more to Josh Heupel than to Hendon Hooker. It’s a long, long shot, but we think the value’s off the charts.
Pick: USC to miss playoff –300. Medium confidence.
Pick: Clemson to miss playoff –300. Medium confidence.
Pick: Texas to miss playoff –350. Medium confidence.
Pick: LSU to miss playoff –400. Medium confidence.
Pick: Florida State to miss playoff –400. Medium confidence.
Pick: Oregon to miss playoff –850. Medium confidence.
Pick: Texas A&M to miss playoff –1400. Medium confidence.
Pick: Oklahoma to miss playoff –1400. Medium confidence.
Pick: Utah to make playoff +900. Low confidence.
Pick: Tennessee to win national championship +6600. Low confidence.
UTEP @ Jacksonville State
I struggle to find an explanation for UTEP being favored here, other than doubt of Jacksonville State’s quality of performance last year, still almost exclusively against FCS competition.
The problem with this thinking is that the top of the FCS, on aggregate, is better than Conference USA right now, and while Jacksonville State wasn’t playing the top of the FCS, it was at that level itself. The Gamecocks are probably the better team in this one, and they’re also playing at home.
Pick: Jacksonville State +2 (–110). Low confidence.
UMass @ New Mexico State
This is another puzzler, with New Mexico State coming off a great season and hanging in there with roster turnover. There isn’t much to like about UMass, who will also be playing at a little bit of altitude here in 95-degree heat.
Pick: New Mexico State –7 (–110). Low confidence.
Fordham @ Albany
The dissonance here is that the FCS media seems extremely high on Holy Cross, which should imply some respect for Fordham as well through those two team’s Patriot League connections. It’s also high on the CAA, to be fair, where Albany plays, but this is a surprising line, implying that almost all of Fordham’s success last season came from quarterback Tim DeMorat. DeMorat was a great player, but as with Tennessee: College football is not as much about individual QB talent as the NFL is.
Pick: Fordham +4.5 (–110). Low confidence.
