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 –2.0% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 7,765 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.6% across 2,293 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 rely heavily on Nate Silver’s presidential election model for our election futures. For college football bets, we primarily use our own model. For NFL bets, we lean on ESPN’s FPI.
Active markets today: Single-game MLB; single-game college football.
Here’s the history on each and how we approach them:
MLB moneylines: Last year, we finished the season up about 8%. We’re 166–142–4 so far this year, down 9.39 units. A little more than a month ago, we pivoted to a different set of systems. We’re 54–40–1 since the pivot, up 3.41 units. The biggest driver of that success has been Heat Index, our pet metric which gauges the gap between how hot different teams are. Together, various combinations of Heat Index’s first, second, and third picks have gone 39–16–1, generating a 6.59-unit return. In response to a recent plateau, we’ve recently shortened Heat Index’s sample to two weeks and reverted to only betting one game a day with it. We’ll keep monitoring its performance.
Single-game college football bets: Our history here is mediocre, and true to form, we’re 6–7 so far this year. We’re down 1.69 units heading into today.
Milwaukee @ Arizona
Despite the Brewers winning last night, this game takes over the biggest hot/cold gap in our two-week sample. The Diamondbacks’ bats remain scorching over any sample greater than one game, and the Brewers’ remain cold.
Pick: Arizona to win –149. Low confidence. (Myers and Pfaadt must start.)
Arkansas State @ Michigan
We’re not at the point of trusting Movelor yet, but we have a really hard time fading some of the picks where it most disagrees with the market. Maybe we should be trusting our process more—we have a decent amount of anecdotal evidence suggesting we should fade Movelor when it faces a big difference from the spread—but what we know about our model is that it struggles in the early part of the season and then pulls it together. What we don’t know is when exactly that will happen.
So, we revert to our own minds, which is a dangerous place to go.
Where I currently stand on Michigan is that I don’t think their offense is as bad as everyone believes, yet I’m suspicious that their defense has fallen off this year. The offense should be able to overpower Arkansas State even if it’s weak. Arkansas State isn’t even on Fresno State’s level defensively. On the other side of the ball, I don’t think we can rule out the possibility that Jesse Minter’s departure and the high roster turnover impacted the defense, even as it retained some studs. Maybe Texas’s offense is simply that good, but to my rather uneducated eye, Michigan’s defense looked a little concerning last week. Arkansas State should be able to get to double digits here.
Pick: Over 47.5 (–110). Low confidence.
Georgia @ Kentucky
In the later game, we’ve got a similar plot but a very different rationale:
We think Kentucky stinks.
Georgia hasn’t appeared all that interested in recent seasons in running up the score, but that cuts both ways: Their second string might not suffocate the Cats the way it would if Kirby Smart was worried about point differential.
Pick: Over 44.5 (–115). Low confidence.
UTSA @ Texas
Finally, over in Austin, we’ve got the Longhorns covering a very big number even as we hold off on anointing them the Heisman-driven national champions just yet. The logic here is that we think Steve Sarkisian wants to put on a show for an enthused fanbase, and that he knows people want to see Arch Manning touchdowns. We’re also curious about that question of whether coaches have the spread in mind. We’re curious about it. That’s all.
Pick: Texas –35 (–110). Low confidence.
