No dice on yesterday’s longshots. Great top of the first in the Pirates game, though. Should’ve bet the top of the first.
Today: Our daily MLB moneyline, our weekday MLB futures, and our daily NBA and NHL playoff futures.
New York (NL) at Washington
Guess who leads the majors in starting pitcher fWAR?
It’s the Mets, unfortunately for this spin, but the Nationals do show up at sixth, which speaks to how much they’re getting out of their guys. Trevor Williams, who goes this afternoon, pitched great last season before getting hurt. He hasn’t been quite as good this year, but he’s had a solid April. In his average start, he’s gone five innings, struck out four, walked one or two, and allowed about half a home run. That’s not ace stuff, but it gets the job done. The Nationals aren’t breaking out like they hoped. But they’re competitive, and there’s a lot of season left. They’re easy to undervalue, especially with Mets excitement so high.
Pick: Washington to win +144. 15.00 units to win 21.60. Canning and Williams must start.
World Series
The value’s great on the Tigers in the postseason right now, which is a little unusual for a team with the best record in the AL. Normally, we’d expect a team like Detroit—Cinderella run last year, hot start this year, highly dependent on one guy—to be overvalued by the market. Instead, the opposite is happening. Maybe it’s because their start wasn’t actually that hot. They’re 8–2 over their last ten games after opening the year 10–8. Markets might just be slow to catch up.
Pick: Detroit to win +2200. 2.00 units to win 44.00.
AL West
We keep pouring more into the Mariners because we agree with FanGraphs that they should be the true favorite in the AL West. We understand the concern around Logan Gilbert and George Kirby, but that concern is showing up too significantly in the markets, to the degree where we think what’s really happening is the markets getting distracted by the Rangers and Astros, franchises with more notable recent success.
For the purposes of our portfolio, this puts a lot of eggs into the Mariners division basket. It’s not so many that we can’t diversify further, though, and one thing it does is give us an out in the event the Dodgers and Cubs run away with the National League West and Central. Right now, both those teams are unprofitable outcomes for us within their division market.
Pick: Seattle to win +200. 2.00 units to win 4.00.
First Round: Colorado vs. Dallas
Gelo agrees with markets that the Avalanche are better than the Stars. It agrees the Avalanche should be favored even though the Stars have home-ice advantage. It disagrees with the Avalanche being favored this significantly. The Oettinger question is significant, but it isn’t this significant, and he wasn’t playing that badly when the Stars pulled him, which means the market reaction is implying he’ll play worse post-benching, he won’t play post-benching, or that he’s maybe hurt. Those are all possibilities, but there’s too much guesswork involved in each to give them a whole lot of weight.
Pick: Dallas to win series +153. 2.00 units to win 3.06.
First Round: Houston vs. Golden State
There’s not a ton of value available on NBA futures right now, and while we’re pumped to have the Timberwolves at +2000 to win the West, we’re looking at about a 4-unit loss from the first round if current favorites hold on. So, a little more on the Warriors, who look valuable at this price and will hopefully grab a 3–1 series lead tonight.
Pick: Golden State to win series –340. 2.00 units to win 0.59.
**
I am only roughly 90% confident in these numbers. We’ll get that Google Sheet up soon which tracks all our bets this year.
2025: –133.72 units (started with 1,000-unit bankroll)
2025: –4% average ROI (weighted by unit; sample size: 310 single-game markets plus one completed futures portfolio)
Pre-2025: 0% average ROI (worse when limited to only sports)
Units taken from best odds we can find at major sportsbooks available to most Americans.
These bets are not investment advice. If you’re worried you or someone you know might have a gambling addiction, call 1-800-GAMBLER for free, confidential help.
**
