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 -4% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 2,934 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of 0.3% across 762 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 have a gambling problem, get help.
Lines for these come from the Vegas consensus or the closest approximation available at the time picks are written, unless otherwise noted. For futures bets and motorsports bets, odds are taken from the better option between Bovada and BetOnline as our best approximation of the Vegas consensus, which isn’t currently/accurately available online. FanGraphs is heavily used in making MLB picks.
With no hockey game tonight, we’re going to let the markets settle out, especially with our bankroll getting kind of narrow for the moment on that front. We’ll likely be hedging by betting the Lightning moneyline in Game 6, as we said yesterday, but we’ll wait for tomorrow to do that.
We’re back to hockey today, with some help from Gelo, and we’re making our F1 pick as well, with that race so early tomorrow morning. For futures context: The NHL futures portfolio started with 100 units in the active bankroll and 100 more units in reserve in case we needed to hedge. We needed to hedge.
New York Rangers @ Tampa Bay
We’re laying off the moneyline because it directly conflicts with our next play, and while we try to keep our single-game and futures efforts separate, in this case, that’s dumb. Gelo likes the over, and while it’s been a low-scoring series, we see that whipsaw plenty in this sport.
Pick: Over 5.5 (+122). Low confidence.
New York Rangers @ Tampa Bay (Futures)
We decided upon this hedging contingency on Thursday, and while the odds are a bit shorter than we expected, the effect is the same. Should the Rangers win, we’ll be in a little bit of a pickle, but 1) our plan is to place a further hedge in Game 7, should that happen, and 2) that’s only something like 35% likely to happen.
31 units on this.
Pick: Tampa Bay to win -190. Low confidence. x31
Azerbaijan Grand Prix
Max Verstappen is the primary Red Bull driver, but Sergio Pérez was faster than him in yesterday’s practices. It’s easy to make too much of Pérez’s successful track record in Baku, considering the luck involved last year, but it’s also easy to make too much of the luck involved last year. With these odds three times those of Verstappen, it makes more sense to ride with Checo and try to capture some value.
Pick: Sergio Pérez to win +400. Low confidence.
