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 7,284 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.2% across 2,268 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.
Active markets today: Major League Baseball moneylines and futures.
Single-day MLB bets: Last year, we finished the season up about 8%, betting strictly moneylines. We’re trying the same approach this year. We’re 5–9 so far, down 5.19 units. It’s been a bad start, but we did have a nice mid-April run last year, so we’re hoping to turn it around quickly.
MLB futures: We have a great history with these, though the last two years we’ve only made small profits. In both 2019 and 2021, I believe we recorded better than a 50% ROI. In 2020, we lost about 25% of our portfolio. We began this season with 750 units in our portfolio, with the intent being to spend 500 of those over the regular season and keep 250 in reserve for the postseason and/or hedging & arbitrage opportunities. We plan to place two medium-confidence bets most weekdays.
New York (NL) @ Atlanta
There isn’t much to dislike here for Atlanta. Winans isn’t exciting, but he has a full bullpen behind him. This is a pretty good price for this big a favorite.
Pick: Atlanta to win –160. Low confidence. Quintana and Winans must start.
NLCS
The Pirates are in first place in the Central through twelve games. They’re actually in first place in the entire National League. This is unlikely to be sustained, but they’re good enough that they’re probably going to finish above .500, and this division is wide open, as we keep saying. We’ll grab this price in case it goes away fast.
Pick: Pittsburgh to win +6000. Medium confidence.
ALCS
It’s a similar situation here, although the Royals are only second in the AL Central and third in the American League. We talked the other day about the upside of the Kansas City pitching staff. We like that upside a lot.
Pick: Kansas City to win +4000. Medium confidence.
