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 8,004 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2% across 2,457 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 rely heavily on Nate Silver’s presidential election model for our election futures. For college football bets, we primarily use our own model. For NFL bets, we lean on ESPN’s FPI.
Our active markets today are MLB futures and single-game NFL. Here’s the context on each:
MLB futures – In four of the five years we’ve done these, we’ve profited, twice by large margins. We began this season with 750 units in our portfolio. We placed two medium confidence bets most weekdays throughout the regular season, as usual, then pivoted to placing a more variable number throughout the playoffs, as usual. We’re currently big fans of the Mets, and we do not want the Dodgers to win it all.
Single-game NFL bets – We published these for the first time last year, and they went terribly. So far this year, though, we’re 11–9 and up 1.25 units. We’ve lost our last three, so we’re not feeling all that comfortable in our approach, but it’s at least a little over .500 on the season.
Game 6: New York (NL) @ Los Angeles
With the Guardians eliminated, our futures portfolio is in a bad hole. Here are the scenarios, before accounting for today’s investment:
| NLCS | World Series | Final Net |
| NYM | NYM | 159.40 |
| LAD | NYY | -64.17 |
| NYM | NYY | -72.50 |
| LAD | LAD | -310.27 |
We’ll have a lot of units to invest throughout the World Series, so all’s not lost, but that Dodgers title scenario is close to 50% likely, and it’s very bad, and the Yankees title scenarios are also not good. Meanwhile, there is no positive value available on the World Series market or on the NLCS as a whole.
So, we’re betting Game 6, and while we explored hedging and betting on the Dodgers, we don’t think it makes sense. If we did that and the Mets did win the series, we’d have lost too much of our upside. The average outcome in Mets/Yankees would be an eleven-unit loss, and the true probabilistic mean would pull that even lower, because the Yankees will be favored in a Yankees–Mets series. If we did it and the Dodgers won, we still wouldn’t have a profitable scenario.
Instead, we’re rolling with what FanGraphs’s Depth Charts and ZiPS both view as a positive-EV play: The Mets to win Game 6. We’re putting 22 units on it (329.4 units of liquidity in our portfolio divided by a maximum of 14 more postseason days means an average of 23.5 units bet per day), and we’re just going to hope for a Game 7. The nice thing about this if it does hit is that 1) we get the payout back right away, so we can invest even more tomorrow, and 2) it will lift the final net result in each of the four scenarios above. 22 units, to win 29.48.
Pick: New York (NL) to win +134. Medium confidence. x11 (Manaea and Kopech must start.)
NY Jets @ Pittsburgh
Our approach this year has been to trust FPI, with few variations. With Davante Adams making his Jets debut and Russell Wilson making his season debut, this is a little more uncertain. But will either of those changes move the needle significantly? More than injuries? We can talk ourselves into FPI pretty quickly on a highly uncertain market with a lot of public involvement. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t, but we don’t mind rolling with the Steelers tonight.
Pick: Pittsburgh +2.5 (–105). Low confidence.
