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% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 7,906 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +1% across 2,397 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: MLB moneylines, MLB futures, single-game college football. Here’s the context on each:
MLB moneylines: Last year, we finished the season up about 8%. We’re 169–152–4 so far this year, down 15.16 units. It’s been a bad showing, and we are grateful it will soon be over.
MLB futures: In four of the five years we’ve done these, we’ve profited, twice by large margins. We began this season with 750 units in our portfolio. We place two medium confidence bets most weekdays throughout the regular season. Now that division futures have begun paying out, we’re doing it on weekends as well. These are still tracking well—of the expected twelve playoff teams, three would be bad World Series winners for our portfolio, four would be great, and the other five would be in between—but there’s a long way to go.
Single-game college football bets: Our history here is mediocre, and we’re off to a really bad start this season, with a 9–13 record on the young year. We’re down 4.96 units heading into today.
Chicago (AL) @ Detroit
We’re continuing this approach of betting against the perceived hottest team. It hasn’t gone well, but we do like these odds for an early start the day after the Tigers clinched.
Pick: Chicago (AL) to win +195. Low confidence. (No starting pitcher requirements.)
World Series
I still think we’re in that window of the calendar where the FanGraphs Playoff Odds are a little funky, but I think that’s more for postseason odds than regular season (I think it comes from their depth charts reflecting a two or four-game period rather than an entire trip through the rotation). This, of course, is a postseason bet, but it’s coming from the regular season probabilities, where FanGraphs now has Atlanta 91% likely to make the field. We’re skeptical about whether the number should really be that high, but it should definitely be higher than both the Mets’ number and the Diamondbacks’, and these odds aren’t reflecting that enough. We’ll double up.
Pick: Atlanta to win +3000. Medium confidence. x2
Nebraska @ Purdue
For our second and third picks, we’re using a pretty thorough process. For our first, we’re betting against Purdue because we think they’re the worst team in the Power Four.
Pick: Nebraska –10 (–110). Low confidence.
Texas State vs. Sam Houston
Our process here was to look at games where Movelor disagreed with the public and disagreed with the spread by about a handful of points. Then, we went back and checked which conferences we’ve had success in. That leads us to Sam Houston, who’s sneakily gotten a lot better this year, covering against Texas State, who fits the bill of an overhyped Sun Belt team.
Pick: Sam Houston +10.5 (–105). Low confidence.
Florida State @ SMU
That same process led us here. We don’t think SMU’s as good a football team as Florida State.
Pick: Florida State +6 (–110). Low confidence.
