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 5,355 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +3.1% across 1,754 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. Movelor is heavily used in making college football picks, with some references to ESPN’s FPI and SP+. FPI is heavily used in making NFL picks, especially futures.
We’ve got today’s MLB futures, and we’ve got a lot of college football. Here’s the context on each.
MLB futures: We began the season with 750 units in our MLB futures portfolio. This is circular, because we use FanGraphs probabilities to guide our picks, but if we use FanGraphs probabilities and include today’s plays, our mean expected return on those 750 units is 115.76 units, or 15.4%.
Single-game college football bets: On the season, we’re 35–31–1. We’re up 1.60 units and up 2%.
World Series (Hedge)
The odds tightened a little on this, which is too bad for us, but it’s still the least bad value available on the Rangers or the Phillies, and those are the fronts we need to address. 24 units today keeps us on pace to tighten the gap before the NLCS Game 1 on Monday.
Pick: Philadelphia to win +200. Medium confidence. x12
Iowa State @ Cincinnati
Iowa State didn’t play as well as its result last weekend, good as it was for the Cyclones. Chandler Morris got hurt, and the Cyclones won the highest-leverage plays. Still, Cincinnati hasn’t demonstrated that it’s a competitive Big 12 team yet. Their defense has had moments, but it’s been an unimpressive year from the Bearcats. Maybe they get their first conference win today, but if they do, they’re going to have to work for it.
Pick: Iowa State +5 (–108). Low confidence.
Cal @ Utah
Utah doesn’t have Cam Rising, but they haven’t had Cam Rising all year. This line reads like an overreaction to a situation that’s staying mostly the same. They’re making a QB change behind Rising? Great. But if anything, you’d think that would make them better, or else they wouldn’t be making it.
Pick: Utah –10 (–110). Low confidence.
Texas A&M @ Tennessee
We aren’t sold on Texas A&M being competitive, and we aren’t sold on Tennessee not being a top-ten team. We said yesterday that we’ll learn a lot about the Volunteers today, and we mean that. We still have a lot of confidence in Josh Heupel over the long term, and because of that we don’t doubt him in the short term.
Pick: Tennessee –3 (–110). Low confidence.
Kansas @ Oklahoma State
Kansas still doesn’t have Jalon Daniels, and Oklahoma State is playing like a respectable football team again. Usually, we don’t put too much stock in QB injuries at the college level—we think they tend to be overvalued—but the Daniels saga has given us a large sample, and our impression from that sample is that his absence does make Kansas immensely worse.
Pick: Oklahoma State +3 (–110). Low confidence.
Missouri @ Kentucky
Kentucky got whacked by Georgia, but who wouldn’t get whacked by Georgia right now if Georgia played its best game? We don’t know it was Georgia’s best game, but there’s as much to convince us of that as there is to make us think something’s wrong with Kentucky. Where that leaves us, on balance, is with the belief that yes, Kentucky is the better team today, and that means they should cover playing at home.
Pick: Kentucky –2.5 (–105). Low confidence.
Miami @ North Carolina
Miami was playing so badly last week even before the no–kneel debacle, and after it as well. So much of the public confidence in them comes from them beating up Texas A&M, who hasn’t proven they’re all that much. We like the Tar Heels in a game that shouldn’t sneak up on them.
Pick: North Carolina –2.5 (–115). Low confidence.
NC State @ Duke
We think the world of Riley Leonard, and we think his absence will greatly impact Duke, but the thing that’s made Duke so impressive has more been its defense than its offense, and without having seen what Duke looks like with Henry Belin IV, we’re going to assume a fairly standard starter–to–backup dropoff. That leaves us liking the Blue Devils.
Pick: Duke –3 (–110). Low confidence.
