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 –2.6% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 7,448 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.2% 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, and nothing else. With both the NBA and NHL futures, we’re waiting to see how Game 2 goes. Game 1 went our way in each series, but in neither series are odds at the point where we could consider a hedge. MLB futures are off for the weekend.
Single-day MLB bets: Last year, we finished the season up about 8%, betting strictly moneylines. We’ve tried a similar approach this year. We’re 61–56 so far, down 3.75 units. It’s been a terrible performance, one in which every sign of progress has been met with a swift comedown. That said, we’re 11–1 over the last five days.
San Francisco @ Texas
We’ve got five MLB moneylines today, and as we’ve explained before with our Sunday picks, they’re all on Saturday losers. We found evidence in 2022 that the market was undervaluing Saturday losers on Sundays, and while we aren’t extremely confident that’s the case every weekend, we do think it’s likelier than not to be true. In this one, we’re a little worried by the volatility of Keaton Winn coming off the IL, but that volatility breaks both ways.
Pick: Texas to win –150. Low confidence. (Winn and Eovaldi must start.)
Chicago (NL) @ Cincinnati
In this one, our worry is how badly the Cubs have been playing of late, but Shōta Imanaga’s start on Tuesday was better than it looked, and he got out of there on a low pitch count, which should help him come back on normal rest. The Reds have used a lot of bullpen in the series so far, with all three games close in the late innings. Again, we see the favorite avoiding the sweep.
Pick: Chicago (NL) to win –128. Low confidence. (Imanaga and Montas must start.)
Milwaukee @ Detroit
Tarik Skubal is the current AL Cy Young favorite, so seeing value on him is a little bit of a treat. It’s fair to think that the Brewers are likelier than most to finish a sweep, because they’ve got a little bit of that football mentality, but I don’t think that’s big enough for us to hold off, especially with two underdogs to come.
Pick: Detroit to win –165. Low confidence. (Wilson and Skubal must start.)
Houston @ Anaheim
We still really like Patrick Sandoval, or at least we like him more than the market does.
Pick: Anaheim to win +131. Low confidence. (Verlander and Sandoval must start.)
Toronto @ Oakland
Bowden Francis might be fine. His sample is small. But we aren’t at the point of trusting the Blue Jays, and even teams we trust we usually distrust on Sundays.
Pick: Oakland to win +110. Low confidence. (Francis and Spence must start.)
