Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 506 completed bets (this doesn’t include outstanding futures picks), Joe’s picks published here and back at All Things NIT, our former site, have an average return on investment of 4% when weighted by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high). This, compared to other picks consistently published online, is pretty good. It would not be a great annual ROI for an investor. But it’s not too shabby on a daily basis.
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Five picks today.
As always:
- Lines come from the Vegas Consensus at the time this is written, or the best approximation I can find of it online.
- Data and predictions from FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, Baseball Savant, Spotrac, Sagarin, Massey Ratings, and ESPN is/are often used and/or cited.
- The blurbs often aren’t justifications of the picks. Often, they’re instead just notes about something or someone related to the pick. Something that interests me. You are not required to read these. I don’t explain the picks because in general, the rationale behind each pick is the same, so it would be boring to say over and over again that the numbers I use project a good return on investment and I see no red flags significant enough to make me hold off.
College Football
Eastern Kentucky @ Louisville
Louisville and Eastern Kentucky both have their work cut out for them.
Eastern Kentucky’s trying to make their first playoff appearance in five seasons, likely needing eight wins to have much of a chance at that. In addition to being heavy underdogs today, they won’t be favored on the road against Indiana State, Southeast Missouri State, or Jacksonville State, meaning they almost certainly need one upset victory to join the conversation.
Elsewhere in the commonwealth, Louisville’s trying to make a bowl in head coach Scott Satterfield’s first season at the helm. The Cardinals looked respectable against Notre Dame last week, winding up right around where Vegas expected them. But it wasn’t a win, and with three of their home games coming against teams in the ACC’s top tier (Clemson, Virginia, Syracuse), the road ahead is challenging.
One thing Louisville did well against the Irish was move the ball on the ground. With 5.30 yards per rushing attempt, they were in the top 35 in the metric for the week. Against a front seven as good as Notre Dame’s, that’s an accomplishment, and something to build on going forward.
Pick: Louisville -21 (-110). Low confidence.
Arkansas @ Mississippi
While Arkansas and Mississippi figure to have their share of struggles this year (they were picked by the media to finish last and next-to-last, respectively, in the SEC West), they both at least figure to benefit from strong defenses. Bill Connelly’s SP+ has each defense ranked among the nation’s top 15, with Arkansas topping the Rebels at ninth.
Unfortunately for the Razorbacks, that ninth-ranked defense doesn’t have much of a compliment. SP+ has the offense ranked 121st, and it managed only 20 points in Week One against a Portland State team that managed just three wins last year against even its fellow FCS teams.
Yes, Mississippi will have its struggles on offense too. SP+ has them at 113th. And they, too, couldn’t put many points on the board last week, managing just ten against Memphis. But Memphis, for its part, has an even better defense than either of these (according to SP+), making that result at least understandable.
Pick: Mississippi -6.5 (-110). Low confidence.
MLB
Seattle @ Houston
The Astros’ starting pitching, especially at the top end, is so good that sometimes the offense doesn’t get its due. It’s the best offense in the league by wRC+ and wOBA, and it’s actually good enough in both those metrics that in the former, it’s even with Francisco Lindor, and in the latter, it’s tied with Ozzie Albies.
An offense in which Lindor and Albies would be average hitters is a good one, and part of why it wasn’t all that surprising for the Astros to complete their comeback from seven down against the Mariners Thursday night.
Pick: Over 8.5 (-120). Low confidence.
Philadelphia @ New York (NL)
This year hasn’t gone as well as Phillies fans hoped. The last few weeks haven’t gone as well as Mets fans hoped. For both teams, the outcomes were reasonable, but they didn’t match what narratives led folks to believe.
Entering today, FanGraphs gives the Mets a 14.9% chance of making the playoffs still. For the Phillies, that’s 1.6%. This is notable not so much because of this season (though it’s worth paying attention to in that regard, of course), but because of what it says about the composition of each roster:
The Mets are better built than the Phillies right now.
Going forward, that’s how it projects too. Neither team loses any of its best players to free agency this offseason, and neither stands out against the other when it comes to the potential for youthful improvement. Both have shown they’re willing to spend. The Phillies, especially, will likely need to do a lot of that to compete in what should be another tight year in the NL East.
Pick: New York (NL) to win (-160). Low confidence.
Cleveland @ Minnesota
Coming into the season, Cleveland’s rotation figured to be a strength. Corey Kluber, Trevor Bauer, and Carlos Carrasco were a strong top tier, and there was plenty of cause for optimism regarding Shane Bieber and Mike Clevinger.
The optimism, it turns out, was well-placed. Bieber’s contributed 5.2 fWAR. Clevinger’s posted 3.4 fWAR in only 93 innings. But Kluber’s been injured, Carrasco’s dealt with cancer, and Bauer posted a 4.15 FIP before being dealt to Cincinnati.
Help has come from an unlikely place.
Rookie Aaron Civale is only 24. His fastball averages a velocity a bit lower than 93 mph. He was the franchise’s 25th-ranked prospect by FanGraphs at the time of his debut. And through seven starts, he has a 1.94 ERA.
To be fair, Civale probably won’t keep up the 75.1% LOB rate and the .280 BABIP. But his FIP’s 2.61. And to be fair a second time, he probably won’t keep allowing home runs on only 2.3% of fly balls. But the air’s getting colder in the Rust Belt, and his xFIP’s a respectable 4.41.
If nothing else, Civale is providing stability in a rotation in need of just that.
Pick: Under 9.5 (-110). Low confidence.
