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 -4.8% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 3,559 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of 1.0% across 901 completed high and medium-confidence picks (low confidence picks, these days, are in experimental markets for us). Our ETA to get the overall number back profitable is currently November 5th, the date of a potential World Series Game 7.
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. For futures bets (in both sports and politics) and motorsports bets, odds are taken from the better option between Bovada and BetOnline as our best approximation of the Vegas consensus, which isn’t currently/accurately available online. FanGraphs is heavily used in making MLB picks. FiveThirtyEight’s SPI is heavily used in making soccer picks. ESPN’s FPI is heavily used in making NFL picks.
MLB futures and a NASCAR play today. Unit context on the futures is that we started the season with 1,040 total units available for futures and for hedges against those futures. Entering today, we’ve netted 13.18 units of profit, and we have 539.18 units in the MLB futures bankroll, with 514 units pending.
World Series
We’re putting ten units on each of these. The value’s there for both.
In the context of our overall portfolio, this closes the gap between our Padres upside and our Mets upside, ensuring we’ll have strong upside on whichever wins to weight against our large Dodgers downside in the next round. It also closes the gap between Atlanta and Philadelphia, serving a similar purpose for a potential NLCS against Los Angeles. Overall, we have upside on San Diego, the Mets, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Seattle; and we have downside on Houston, Los Angeles, Cleveland, and the Yankees. Different magnitudes, but we’re strong in the NL and weak in the AL and we’re going to see what we can do with that.
Pick: Atlanta to win +600. Medium confidence. x5
Pick: New York (NL) to win +1200. Medium confidence. x5
Division Series: New York (AL) vs. Cleveland
This doesn’t do everything to change the situation with the Guardians, and it opens up more liability on the Yankees, but there’s good value, and good value never hurts.
Pick: Cleveland to win +185. Medium confidence.
Division Series: Houston vs. Seattle
It’s a similar story here. This ratchets up our Mariners upside a little bit, but it increases our Astros downside in the process. We have enough Mariners upside that we could hedge our way into a fine situation with the Astros (we were in a fine situation with them yesterday, before we put twenty more units on the World Series, and we actually have pretty good upside on them in the ALCS taken alone), but with so much downside on the Yankees/Guardians winner, we’re willing to run the risk of getting burned by Houston in exchange for better leverage from our Mariners plays.
Pick: Seattle to win +205. Medium confidence.
NASCAR Cup Series: Bank of America Roval 400
Joey Logano’s got pretty long odds for having won the pole in a race where it’s hard to pass. This isn’t Formula 1, but Logano does stand a solid chance of winning today, especially because he’s such a good racer. Doubts as to whether the Penske cars will have the speed are warranted, but confidence in other teams to put together great cars appears overblown, and you can do worse than Logano in a bet on repeated restart blocking throughout a race.
Pick: Joey Logano to win +1000. Low confidence.
