Profitable day yesterday. Won the MLB pick. Split the college basketball. Plenty more ahead.
An MLB moneyline for today, two more Elite Eight picks, a little bit of NASCAR, and a college basketball future:
Philadelphia at Washington
Our method for MLB moneylines is fairly consistent in the early season: We look at FanGraphs’s probabilities, then look for red flags. One red flag we sometimes reference on Sundays is whether the team won on Saturday. We had a strange but significant amount of success three years ago blindly betting Saturday losers to win on Sunday. So, we like this play anyway, but we especially like that the Nats lost their last time out.
Pick: Washington to win +126. 15.00 units to win 18.90. Nola and Parker must start.
Houston vs. Tennessee
As with yesterday, the kenpom/Nate Silver combo we use likes the underdogs today. Again, it’s easy to see why this might happen in the market. It’s easy to overvalue favorites, especially when favorites keep winning.
Pick: Tennessee +3 (–115). 10.00 units to win 8.70.
Auburn vs. Michigan State
Same story here.
Pick: Michigan State +5.5 (–113). 10.00 units to win 8.85.
NCAA Tournament
Our probabilities show value on Auburn again today, so we’ll jump on that. Michigan State’s still our preference in that game, but we’ll have at least one horse in the Final Four. Scenarios for the NCAA Tournament portion of our portfolio:
- Tennessee wins: +39 units
- Michigan State wins: +21 units
- Auburn wins: +10 units
- Anybody else wins: –5 units
Pick: Auburn to win +750. 1.00 unit to win 7.50.
NASCAR Cup Series at Martinsville
NASCAR’s been going better for us than usual the last few weeks, but we aren’t going to up the unit on it for a while. We’re not confident at all that it’ll last, especially since our method is only us eyeballing picks. That said, we like Christopher Bell today. He’s starting from the pole. He’s won here before in the current car. He’s been a dynamo so far this season. We get why Ryan Blaney’s the favorite, but we don’t think he should be.
Pick: Christopher Bell to finish top 5 (+125). 1.00 unit to win 1.25.
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I am only roughly 90% confident in these numbers. We’ll get that Google Sheet up soon which tracks all our bets this year.
2025: –272.11 units (started with 1,000-unit bankroll)
2025: –9% average ROI (weighted by unit; sample size: 243 single-game markets plus one half-completed futures portfolio)
Pre-2025: 0% average ROI (worse when limited to only sports)
Units taken from best odds we can find at major sportsbooks available to most Americans.
These bets are not investment advice. If you’re worried you or someone you know might have a gambling addiction, call 1-800-GAMBLER for free, confidential help.
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