Some good stuff from the Phillies last night. Almost some good stuff from the Padres. Terrible stuff from the Nationals.
More MLB moneyline action today, possibly our last anti-Rockies play, our weekday MLB futures, and our daily NBA playoff futures.
St. Louis at Chicago (AL) – Game 1
We switched our MLB moneyline approach yesterday, and that’s creating a lot of favorites we like today. What’s happening here?
The Cardinals have been hot and cold, but their bats are league-average since their relative downturn began on June 8th. The White Sox stink, are on a rough losing streak, and probably know they have a better chance to win Game 2 than Game 1, though markets are really high on St. Louis in that one, possibly huffing Michael McGreevy’s small sample.
We’re not sure if either team is a good price in Game 2, but it’s hard to see why the prices are so different. That makes us think this is probably a good price on STL.
Pick: St. Louis to win –140. 15.00 units to win 10.71. Fedde and Burke must start.
Arizona at Toronto
Kevin Gausman’s been wilder his last two starts, but he did that before this year against good lineups on the road, and he bounced back just fine. His xERA and FIP are both better than his ERA, repudiating the narrative that he’s having some sort of down year. The Blue Jays are also a sweep-heavy team, for whatever reason. Sweeps when they win, sweeps when they lose. Six of their last eleven series have been sweeps. And Thursday doesn’t behave like Sunday in the getaway day category, at least based on our testing.
Pick: Toronto to win –133. 15.00 units to win 11.28. Nelson and Gausman must start.
Cleveland at San Francisco
Can Logan Webb play stopper? We buy it. Unlike the Blue Jays, the Guardians have struggled to put sweeps away, too.
Pick: San Francisco to win –172. 15.00 units to win 8.72. Williams and Webb must start.
Philadelphia at Miami
This is a lot like yesterday’s Phillies play. Christopher Sánchez has probably been better than people realize, the Phillies are closing on the Mets (more on that later), and they get a chance to win a series against a bad team. Edward Cabrera is uninspiring.
Pick: Philadelphia to win –138. 15.00 units to win 10.87. Sánchez and Cabrera must start.
Baltimore at Tampa Bay
Since the start of June, the Rays have been the best lineup in baseball, and it’s not particularly close. I admittedly don’t know the specifics of Pete Fairbanks’s usage rules right now, but under normal ones, he’d be available today, having not thrown many pitches last night and enjoying a lot of rest before last night. Drew Rasmussen, meanwhile, has been consistent and reliable. Charlie Morton, at this age, is anything but that.
Pick: Tampa Bay to win –132. 15.00 units to win 11.36. Morton and Rasmussen must start.
Colorado at Washington
We said we’d finish the series. (Context: We’ve been doing the “bet against the Rockies on the run line” approach but we hopped on the bandwagon way too late and have gotten crushed.)
Pick: Washington –1.5 (+130). 15.00 units to win 19.50.
NL East
The Mets have lost five straight. This isn’t a big deal in terms of a reflection of how good they are, but it’s a big deal in the standings themselves, and books are reacting slowly. The most likely beneficiary is the Phillies (suddenly just a game back), but the value’s good on Atlanta as well, and by grabbing Atlanta now, we’re pretty safe from needing anything more on them this year if we want them to be a profitable scenario for this corner of our portfolio.
Pick: Philadelphia to win +135. 2.00 units to win 2.70.
Pick: Atlanta to win +1800. 2.00 units to win 36.00.
NBA Finals
Our take on tonight’s Game 6 is cautious: Obviously, the Pacers have routinely surprised this postseason, and it’d be foolish to fully count them out, even in the event Tyrese Haliburton doesn’t play.
In terms of bets, though, we’re not going to get good value on the Thunder in Game 7. We might get it on the Pacers, but we’re not guaranteed of that. The highest expected value, then, comes from using all the remaining units in our NBA portfolio to take the very good value we can get right now on OKC to win the series. This leaves us vulnerable to a Pacers comeback, but the loss wouldn’t be massive, and our NBA futures track record is good enough that it wouldn’t concern us much. We’re almost 350 units in the hole this year. Even 5.05 units would help.
The final scenarios for our 200-unit portfolio, with nothing left in the tank:
| Winner | Games | Total |
| Thunder | 6 | 112.26 |
| Thunder | 7 | 59.08 |
| Pacers | 7 | -94.08 |
Pick: Oklahoma City to win –1600. 80.77 units to win 5.05.
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I am only roughly 90% confident in these numbers. At some point we’ll get that Google Sheet up which tracks all our bets this year.
2025: –344.78 units (started with 1,000-unit bankroll)
2025: –6% average ROI (weighted by unit; sample size: 391 single-game markets plus two completed futures portfolios and one partly 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.
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