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 -3.6% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 2,792 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of 0.3% across 762 completed high and medium-confidence picks.
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 have a gambling problem, get help.
Lines for these come from the Vegas consensus or the closest approximation available at the time picks are written, unless otherwise noted. For futures bets and motorsports bets, odds are taken from the better option between Bovada and BetOnline as our best approximation of the Vegas consensus, which isn’t currently/accurately available online. FanGraphs is heavily used in making MLB picks.
Below are our 23rd and 24th futures of the MLB season. If you’re new to this, what we’re doing is investing 520 units over the course of the regular season (with 520 more units in reserve for hedging and the postseason) in an effort to get our all-time results back to a positive average return. We have our strongest history in MLB futures, hitting on a lot of Nationals picks in 2019 and plays across the board last year, with only a small loss in 2020. Currently, our focus is on breadth—we’re trying to diversify our portfolio in these early weeks to build a broad base. When a team on which we haven’t bet shows positive value in a given market, we take that bet. When no new teams are available at positive value, we try to add regular season bets on those on whom we only have postseason bets, and vice versa.
ALCS
There’s value on the Angels today after Orange County’s finest took two of three in Houston to start the week. The Angels have the best record in the American League so far and a playoff probability, per FanGraphs’s depth charts, better than that of the Rays. They’re currently projected to take the AL’s sixth playoff spot, and while that’s a long, long ways off, it doesn’t hurt that the sixth seed will likely get to play an easier Wild Card Series opponent than the fifth seed thanks to the consolidation of power in the AL East. If the Angels make a race of things in the West, or even just hunker down in playoff position, these odds will look good, and there’s a pretty high probability they do just that.
Pick: Anaheim to win +1500. Medium confidence.
World Series
The Blue Jays are, as advertised, a very good team. The best team in the American League. Today, there’s value to be had on them, we don’t have any postseason plays on these guys so far, and it’s helpful to add favorites because it boosts our overall profit probability. Across our six World Series futures, FanGraphs has us 43.0% likely right now to win, and that’s with LCS futures on another three teams. The base keeps getting broader.
Pick: Toronto to win +850. Medium confidence.
