Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 485 completed bets (this doesn’t include outstanding futures picks), Joe’s picks published here and back at All Things NIT, our former site, have an average return on investment of 4% when weighted by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high). This, compared to other picks consistently published online, is pretty good. It would not be a great annual ROI for an investor. But instead it’s coming, on average, on each of these picks.
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Four picks today.
As always:
- Lines come from the Vegas Consensus at the time this is written, or the best approximation I can find of it online.
- Data and predictions from FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, Baseball Savant, Spotrac, Sagarin, Massey Ratings, and ESPN is/are often used and/or cited.
- The blurbs often aren’t justifications of the picks. Often, they’re instead just notes about something or someone related to the pick. Something that interests me. You are not required to read these. I don’t explain the picks because in general, the rationale behind each pick is the same, so it would be boring to say over and over again that the numbers I use project a good return on investment and I see no red flags significant enough to make me hold off.
College Football
Virginia @ Pittsburgh
Pitt’s 2018 season was a wild ride. Blowout losses to Penn State and UCF. Providing UNC their only conference win. A near-miss against Notre Dame. Four straight late-season victories. A trip to the conference championship game. An average of fewer than nine points over the season’s final three contests.
Under Pat Narduzzi, Pitt’s consistently hovered around .500. This year doesn’t look to be much different. But in a division as tight as the ACC’s Coastal, a few games above .500 will probably be all it takes to earn the right to be obliterated by Clemson in the conference championship. A win over narrow division favorite Virginia would be a strong start.
Pick: Pittsburgh +2.5 (-110). Low confidence.
MLB
Oakland @ New York (AL)
The A’s are in the thick of the playoff chase, currently leading the Rays by one game (two in the loss column). If they make their second-straight wild card game, they’ll likely rely on the bullpen once again.
And what a bullpen it is.
The A’s, by fWAR, have the third-most productive relief corps in the MLB. Among whom FanGraphs deems qualified relievers, Liam Hendriks has been the most valuable to date (with a stunning 3.3 fWAR), Yusmeiro Petit is also in the top 30, and Joakim Soria isn’t far off.
The unit isn’t anything historic, but it’s very good, and with a budget rotation, it’s combined to form an effective pitching staff to compliment Oakland’s effective offense. The road to October is still difficult, and the odds once there would be poor. But the A’s are doing everything one could ask them to do.
Pick: Oakland +1.5 (-110). Low confidence.
Cleveland @ Tampa Bay
The Rays find themselves on the outside looking in when it comes to the AL playoff picture. But hope is far from lost.
One of the things keeping them alive is Tommy Pham, whose 122 wRC+ isn’t spectacular, but has been good enough for 3.0 fWAR to date. Pham doesn’t do anything spectacularly well, but he’s reliable and consistent, which has been exactly what the Rays need on a roster full of youth and bargain acquisitions.
Pick: Tampa Bay to win (-122). Low confidence.
Pick: Over 8.5 (-105). Low confidence.
