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 7,319 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2% across 2,268 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’re relying on Neil Paine’s NBA forecast as the basis for our playoff futures portfolio. We use our own Gelo model as the basis for our NHL playoff futures portfolio.
Active markets today: Major League Baseball moneylines, plus NBA and NHL futures. MLB futures are off for the weekend.
Single-day MLB bets: Last year, we finished the season up about 8%, betting strictly moneylines. We’re trying the same approach this year. We’re 22–24 so far, down 2.17 units. We’d had a good back half of April, but this past week wasn’t good.
NBA futures: We’ve only done these once before, but they went well. I believe we made a 7% return on our investment last year. We started at the beginning of the Play-In Tournament with a 100-unit portfolio. Right now, we’re mostly just placing one future per day.
NHL futures: We’ve had mixed results on these. In 2022, we lost 25% of our futures portfolio. Last year, we made a 33% return. We began on the first day of the playoffs with a 100-unit portfolio. Right now, we’re playing just one future per day.
Washington @ Miami
Some of this line might be the Marlins being 6–22. Some of it might be Patrick Corbin’s image rehabilitating itself with his successful outing this week against the Dodgers. Whatever the cause, it’s underweighting the on-paper strength of these lineups and the on-paper strength of Corbin and Weathers. Corbin might not have allowed the Dodgers to score, but three strikeouts and three walks across sixteen outs of work isn’t a full-on breakthrough. We like the Fish to avoid the sweep.
Pick: Miami to win –130. Low confidence. (Corbin and Weathers must start.)
Western Conference (NBA)
We’ve gotten ourselves a little breathing room here, by which I mean that even if the playoffs proceed chalkily and we get Nuggets vs. Celtics in the Finals, we can spend a unit elsewhere today and still be set up to profit on the effort as a whole. Where we’re spending that unit is on the Thunder, whom we like in part because they don’t have to play the Nuggets or the Timberwolves in the second round. The Mavericks (if that’s who the Thunder play) won’t be a cakewalk, but that’s a better opponent to run into.
Pick: Oklahoma City to win +425. Low confidence.
Eastern Conference (NHL)
Markets are still skeptical of the Rangers. To some extent, we get this skepticism. And yet.
The Rangers won the Presidents’ Trophy. They’re up 3–0 in the first round, and even against the Capitals, that’s not nothing. At some point, they’re just good. We’ll put a little more on them today.
Pick: NY Rangers to win +350. Low confidence.
