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 –2.6% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 7,463 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.2% across 2,268 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’re relying on Neil Paine’s NBA forecast as the basis for our playoff futures portfolio. We use our own Gelo model as the basis for our NHL playoff futures portfolio.
Active markets today: Major League Baseball moneylines. That is all. MLB futures are off for the weekend, and while our NHL and NBA futures situations remain risky, we’re one win away from a five or six percent profit on each of those portfolios. The odds for a Mavericks hedge are reasonable enough, and we’ll keep considering it as Monday’s Game 5 approaches. The odds for an Oilers hedge are, unfortunately, an affront to common sense. I say unfortunately because that’s where our downside is greater. It’s tempting, but we can’t let ourselves give in.
Single-day MLB bets: Last year, we finished the season up about 8%, betting strictly moneylines. We’ve tried a similar approach this year. We’re 69–62 so far, down 2.91 units. It’s been a terrible performance, one in which every sign of progress has been met with a swift comedown. But, we’re now 20–7 over the last eleven days, and we’ve cut our deficit by more than two thirds. This is encouraging, even if we remain cautious.
Philadelphia @ Baltimore
These are long odds for these Philadelphia Phillies, even with Taijuan Walker on the mound. They see enough in him to keep keeping him in that rotation, and he pitched pretty well last weekend in London. Grayson Rodriguez is great, but the number of paths to a Phillies win—Walker pitches well, Orioles bullpen struggles, etc.—is large enough for us to like this as a value play.
Pick: Philadelphia to win +164. Low confidence. (Walker and Rodriguez must start.)
Detroit @ Houston
Over here, we’ve got the same situation as yesterday, one where the Astros are good and their starter is probably undervalued. Jack Flaherty’s having a phenomenal year, but we don’t usually trust pitchers coming off a painkilling back injection. That isn’t the driving force behind the pick, but it increases our comfort level.
Pick: Houston to win –114. Low confidence. (Flaherty and Arrighetti must start.)
