Today’s Best Bets: Saturday, September 16th

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 –0.7% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 5,149 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +3.2% across 1,622 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.

One MLB moneyline, an MLB futures hedge, and plenty of college football. Here’s the context on each market.

Single-game MLB bets: On the season, we’re 95–67–4, we’re up 19.67 units, we’re up 12% (the average line on our winners has been –110).

MLB futures: We began the season with 750 units in our MLB futures portfolio, with the intent being to spend 500 of those over the regular season and keep 250 in reserve for the postseason and/or hedging & arbitrage opportunities. 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 the 750 units (based on what we’ve bet so far) is 86.76 units, or 11.6%. We normally take the weekend off, but with the Rays­–Orioles situation what it is (we’ll explain below), we’re hedging here.

Single-game college football bets: On the season, we’re 9–14, and 9–12 on games involving at least one FBS team. We’re down 5.87 units, and down 26%.

Chicago (NL) @ Arizona

We’ll get to the Cubs’ slump in a moment. First: Kyle Hendricks hasn’t been pitching all that deep, but his numbers are great, and Zach Davies is walking more guys than you can walk if you’re Zach Davies.

Now, the slump:

Cubs fans’ heads are falling off over this, which should probably be expected, given so many Cubs fans are also Bears fans. Really, though, the team is fine. They’re ahead by multiple games in the Wild Card race and are ahead of multiple teams, by which I mean they’d have to be passed by two teams, not one, to miss the playoffs. Yes, they’ve lost a few in a row, but they showed life last night, put pressure on the Arizona bullpen, and enter tonight with their own relievers plenty fresh. The Cubs are fine. Will they win tonight? Probably. It’s no guarantee—this is baseball—but they deserve a little more credit than this. There is little reason to believe they will play worse than their fundamentals suggest.

Pick: Chicago (NL) to win –106. Low confidence. (Hendricks and Davies must start.)

AL East

This is bad value, but we were in a boat where if the Rangers were to come back and win the West, we’d lose money on our combined division portfolio. We didn’t like that. This sacrifices some of our Rays upside, but provided the Twins and Brewers hold onto the Centrals, our scenarios are now as follows on our division profit/loss as a whole:

This is a better place to be.

Pick: Baltimore to win –140. Medium confidence. x11

Iowa State @ Ohio

The disrespect!

Something I wonder about with Iowa State is whether bettors are overestimating the quality of the players suspended. Yes, one was the starting quarterback, but Hunter Dekkers wasn’t sensational last year. Yes, there were a few other key players, but besides Jake Remsburg, none are good enough to move the Cyclones’ quality by even half a point. Remsburg is missed, but Iowa State is still good enough to beat a CFL prospect.

Pick: Iowa State –1.5 (–112). Low confidence.

Kansas State @ Missouri

Either the market is very in the weeds of Kansas State’s right tackle situation (it is, credit to the market, it always is) or the market is forgetting how good this K-State team was last year. These are the Big 12 champs. No, that’s not the same as being the SEC champs, but Mizzou wasn’t the SEC champs, and they won’t be again. Mizzou’s going to be lucky if it makes a bowl this year. We like Kansas State to avoid disaster.

Pick: Kansas State –3.5 (–104). Low confidence.

Tennessee @ Florida

This line expresses a lot of faith in Florida or, again, a whole bunch of disrespect towards Joe Milton. Maybe the disrespect is warranted, but Florida hasn’t shown much yet, and Tennessee should at least be a top-20 team, which is what they’d need to be to be expected to win this by a touchdown. We know the rivalry’s lopsided. That hasn’t been a huge issue for Josh Heupel’s program.

Pick: Tennessee –5.5 (–110). Low confidence.

NIU @ Nebraska

Nebraska might be without Jeff Sims today, but that might not be that bad? The issue for the Huskers hasn’t been the bones of the operation. The bones have been fine. The issue has been a prolific ability to shoot themselves in the foot which stretches back years. NIU just lost to Southern Illinois, who is respectable not a top-five FCS team. Nebraska should handle the Huskies.

Pick: Nebraska –13 (–115). Low confidence.

Colorado State @ Colorado

When you’re a good team playing a bad team, sometimes the final margin is a choice. I’m not sure people realize how bad Colorado State is. I also don’t see Deion Sanders laying up. We’ve not been high on the Buffs—we bet against them each of the last two weeks—but it’s fair to view them as a team around the edge of the top 25 in quality, there in the middle of the Pac-12. That’s a whole bunch better than Colorado State, and again: We don’t expect any laying up tonight.

Pick: Colorado –24 (–105). Low confidence.