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 –2.4% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 7,835 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +1.6% across 2,337 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.
Active markets today: Single-game MLB, single-game NFL, and MLB futures. Here’s the context on each market:
MLB moneylines: Last year, we finished the season up about 8%. We’re 168–147–4 so far this year, down 11.79 units. It’s been a bad showing.
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 place two medium confidence bets most weekdays throughout the regular season. Now that division futures have begun paying out, we’re doing it on weekends as well.
Single-game NFL bets: We published these for the first time last year, and they went terribly. So far this year, we’re 5–3, up 1.69 units.
Detroit @ Baltimore
We’re continuing this recent approach of betting against the perceived hottest team in baseball until they lose. It hasn’t done well so far, and neither has pretty much anything we’ve tried this season, so you should probably stay away and you might even be well-served fading us. We’re all about full disclosure over here.
Pick: Baltimore to win –114. Low confidence. (Holton and Suárez must start.)
World Series
The Diamondbacks got a little more safely into playoff terrain with yesterday’s win, and the price didn’t increase by much. We’re adding the Astros because they’re also positive-EV today and they had become an unprofitable scenario again for our portfolio. This gets them back to a positive potential payout, given what we’ve bet so far.
Pick: Houston to win +900. Medium confidence.
Pick: Arizona to win +2800. Medium confidence.
Baltimore @ Dallas
Sundays have been tougher for us so far than Thursdays and Mondays, since we have to make a choice about which game to pick. What we’re looking for with these is a game without many injuries and with high locker room continuity going back to last season. From there, we go with what ESPN’s FPI implies, but with a little more home-field advantage. That second part is what’s 5–3 on the very young season. I assume we’ll have to iterate at some point, and it might just be statistical noise, but we’re hoping to get a couple more weeks out of the approach.
Pick: Dallas +1 (–105). Low confidence.
