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 –0.7% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 5,071 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +3.1% across 1,617 completed high and medium-confidence picks (low confidence picks, these days, are in experimental markets for us).
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 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. FanGraphs is heavily used in making MLB picks.
MLB futures, MLB moneyline. Back to the normal number of futures per day.
Single-game MLB bets: On the season, we’re 68–50–4, we’re up 14.25 units, we’re up 12% (the average line on our winners has been –106). April was great, May was bad, June was good, July was great. We’ve yet to lose in August.
MLB futures: We began the season with 750 units in our MLB futures 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. This is circular, because we use FanGraphs probabilities to guide our picks, but if we use FanGraphs probabilities and include today’s plays, our mean expected return on the 750 units (based on what we’ve bet so far) is 82.61 units, or 7.9%.
Arizona @ San Francisco
The Giants have a lot of relievers whose real-life FIP is better than their FanGraphs projection. I don’t know if this is going to continue or not, but the implication is that if anything, the Giants’ staff on these days they do a bullpen game is better than a projection system that’s already indicating positive value here.
Pick: San Francisco to win –125. Low confidence. (Pfaadt and Alexander must start.)
ALCS
The Astros are now the AL pennant favorite in some books, and they’re the AL pennant favorite on FanGraphs as well. They shouldn’t be expected to get the 1-seed—that’ll likely go to the AL East champion—but they’re likelier to win the West than the Rays are to win the East, and the nice thing about the 2-seed is that there’s a pretty good chance you end up playing the AL Central champ in your first postseason series, which is a great draw.
Pick: Houston to win +325. Medium confidence.
NLCS
Across the league, the Cubs gained another game last night on both the Reds and the Brewers, pushing them ahead of the former in FanGraphs division championship probability while they close on the latter. It’s worth noting that on paper, the Brewers are better than the Cubs. The Cubs do have a much easier schedule the rest of the way, though, and markets like this NLCS one are reacting a little slowly to the North Side surge.
Pick: Chicago (NL) to win +4000. Medium confidence.
