Another good night last night. A very big day today.
Baseball, both kinds of football, and futures for all of it ahead. Let’s get to work.
Cleveland at Detroit
Tarik Skubal probably really is fine, since the Tigers are still probably safe to win the AL Central. But the fact he’s got a little something nagging, combined with the Guardians being 1) the Guardians and 2) on a big winning streak, makes this valuable.
Pick: Cleveland to win +197. 0.50 units to win 0.99. Bibee and Skubal must start.
Sacramento at Boston
Bello’s been due for regression for a while. He’s not bad, but he’s not this good, and the same is true of the Red Sox overall.
Pick: Sacramento to win +129. 0.76 units to win 0.98. Ginn and Bello must start.
Seattle at Kansas City
Heat Index’s second choice is still the Mariners. Heat Index is now 54–30 against average odds of –153. Good showing, but still a week and a half to go.
Pick: Seattle to win –112. 1.10 units to win 0.98. Castillo and Kolek must start.
Anaheim at Milwaukee
Heat Index’s first choice remains the Brewers. Here’s hoping the win–when–Priester–pitches streak continues.
Pick: Milwaukee to win –203. 1.99 units to win 0.98. Kikuchi and Priester must start.
NLCS
More of this today. The Mets are still very likely to make these playoffs.
Pick: New York to win +1100. 2.00 units to win 22.00.
ALCS
And while the AL West is a little dicier, the Mariners are more formidable this weekend and in a potential Wild Card Series than the market’s given them credit for.
Pick: Seattle to win +375. 2.00 units to win 7.50.
NFC East
It’s believable enough to trust the price. If two teams needed something to go badly wrong, we’d be more hesitant, but the Commanders are vulnerable enough that it’s really just the Eagles who’d need a catastrophe for this to be possible. Catastrophes aren’t that uncommon in division races.
Pick: Dallas to win +850. 1.00 unit to win 8.50.
NFC South
Since we’ve mostly been amassing value so far, we haven’t started ratcheting up our profit probability yet. This helps that cause at an advantageous price. We’re not terribly worried about the Falcons yet.
Pick: Tampa Bay to win –210. 3.00 units to win 1.43.
AFC
We already have one on the Chargers in this market, but we’re grabbing another while they’re still here. We haven’t heard the last of the Chiefs, but a two-game lead is huge in a 17-game season.
Pick: LA Chargers to win +850. 2.00 units to win 15.00.
NFC
The Cowboys fit the “they could make the playoffs and this is a good price” approach. The Rams and 49ers are both in that second tier of conference contenders, and they each have a better shot at a first-round home game than the Lions do.
Pick: LA Rams to win +950. 2.00 units to win 19.00.
Pick: San Francisco to win +900. 1.00 unit to win 9.00.
Pick: Dallas to win +4000. 1.00 unit to win 40.00.
Super Bowl
These teams are both right on the edge of what we’d call a believable Super Bowl champion. The on-paper value is great, so we’ll take a shot. Worst case, this probably becomes some good leverage for our portfolio late in the season.
Pick: LA Rams to win +2000. 1.00 unit to win 20.00.
Pick: LA Chargers to win +2000. 1.00 unit to win 20.00.
Miami at Buffalo
FPI likes the Bills here, assuming FPI isn’t going really small with the home-field advantage number. We always trust FPI. Even when Josh Allen’s probably been told to take the night off of running.
Pick: Buffalo –11 (–115). 1.13 units to win 0.98.
Heisman Trophy
It’s John Mateer hour in the Heisman race, but Carson Beck should probably be the favorite. (To be fair, Beck is the favorite in a lot of places. To also be fair, Mateer is electric. Oklahoma just probably needs him to be aggressive, and aggressive means picks, and Oklahoma is probably going to lose multiple games.) Get through these next three weeks, and Miami has the best path to an undefeated season in the country. I don’t know if that gets them the 1-seed, but Julian Sayin probably won’t get as much credit because Jeremiah Smith’s such a weapon, while Gunner Stockton probably won’t put up as gaudy of stats as Beck does. I’m not saying Miami’s a lock to run the table, but Beck is the frontrunner, and by enough that 15-to-2’s a pretty good price. We’ll add him to our very small Heisman portfolio. (The only other bet in there is Rocco Becht at 200-to-1. He’s already down to 100-to-1. How’s that for CLV?)
Pick: Carson Beck to win +750. 1.00 unit to win 7.50.
College Football Playoff
There’s the same amount of cannibalization potential in the ACC and Big 12 as there is in the Big Ten and SEC. Combined with Notre Dame’s likely playoff miss, that makes the modal outcome a playoff with nine teams from the Power 2. There’s value on all these guys, with Oregon’s price still pretty baffling even as it slowly gets shorter.
Pick: Oregon to make playoff –360. 3.00 units to win 0.83.
Pick: Mississippi to make playoff +240. 1.00 unit to win 2.40.
Pick: Missouri to make playoff +400. 1.00 unit to win 4.00.
Pick: Nebraska to make playoff +700. 1.00 unit to win 7.00.
Rice at Charlotte
Rice and Charlotte are both still pretty close to their preseason Movelor ratings, which gives us reason to believe Movelor isn’t that far off on either of them. Movelor has the Owls favored by 5.4, which is a big enough gap from the spread for us to not bother checking injuries. It’s lower-half AAC football. We’re all guessing.
Pick: Rice –2.5 (–110). 0.54 units to win 0.49.
**
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.
2025–26: –481.38 units (started with 1,000-unit bankroll)
2025–26: –7% average ROI (weighted by unit; sample size: 753 single-game markets plus three 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.
**
