Editor’s Note: For almost three years now, Joe has been publishing picks here and back at All Things NIT, our former site. There have been moments of elation (the Nationals winning the 2019 World Series, the first two months of the 2019-20 college basketball season). There have been moments of frustration (the Dodgers’ 2020 NLCS comeback, the second two months of the 2019-20 college basketball season). Overall, the results have been positive, 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 1,503 published picks, not including pending futures. And while 0.7% might not sound enormous, you can do a lot with it over time.
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 have a gambling problem, get help.
Lines for these come from the Vegas consensus or the closest approximation available at the time picks are written, unless otherwise noted. FanGraphs is heavily used in making MLB picks.
The odds for these futures come from Bovada because there’s no consistently current/accurate Vegas consensus online.
NL West
Doubling up because there’s no mechanism in this structure we’ve created to put four units on something and that’s the number that makes the most sense for our portfolio at the moment (also we’re trying to stay undefeated on high confidence plays, so that’s why we aren’t doing one high confidence and one low confidence). Anyway, the Dodgers are four games back but they’re the better team, and partly due to being the better team, they have the easier schedule the rest of the way. The Giants are a ton of fun, but the Dodgers just look like too much, and grabbing them here ups our probability of profiting on the division portion of our portfolio to roughly five in six.
Pick: Los Angeles to win -110. Medium confidence.
Pick: Los Angeles to win -110. Medium confidence.
World Series
First, Milwaukee: Grabbing the Brewers here, and happy to do it because they’re our first National League team and you need some of those to have a good shot at profiting on the World Series market. Seems consistent with our season-long difference of valuation with the market, just poking its head above the profitability threshold significantly enough for the first time.
Second…what the hell is this Red Sox line? Did Chris Sale get hit by a bus after striking out eight Orioles in five innings last night? Does Xander Bogaerts have tuberculosis? Is Alex Verdugo giving up baseball to spend his life at sea?
Yesterday, the Red Sox were at +1500 to win the World Series. They then won, with their ace looking good in his long-awaited return while the team ahead of them in the division standings lost and the pair behind them in the division split. The Rays are division favorites, but the AL’s wide open, and the AL’s better than the NL taken as a whole. +2500??? Seriously?
Pick: Milwaukee to win +1000. Low confidence.
Pick: Boston to win +2500. Low confidence.
