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 -5% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 3,379 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 (low confidence picks, these days, are in experimental markets for us). Our ETA for having the overall number back profitable is currently November 7th, the likeliest date of a World Series Game 7 and the eve of both college basketball season and Election Day.
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 (in both sports and politics) 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.
Just MLB futures Monday through Friday these days. For context on these: We started the season with 520 units in our MLB futures portfolio, with another 520 in reserve in case we need them for hedging down the line.
AL Central
This is a fine bet. There’s narrow positive value, the short term upside within a portfolio is high, the payout is good if it hits. For us, though, it’s a wonderful bet, because for us, it limits our worst realistic case on the division side of our futures portfolio to a 1% loss on what’s been invested so far. (Our “realistic” threshold is 1.5% likely on FanGraphs in this instance—the Giants winning the West is “unrealistic,” but the Padres winning it is “realistic.” For further context, our best “realistic” outcome is a 16% profit.)
For a while now, we’ve had significant liability on the White Sox and the Cardinals. Those two have been our concerns, and specifically, those two winning their divisions in conjunction with one another. We’ve had accompanying upside on the Twins and Guardians (plus a little bit on the Brewers, but we thought those were anchoring bets and then things went wrong in Milwaukee), and now we’re putting that to work. Our upside is more limited now, but there’s a lot of season left, and with three competitive division races, we’re in a good place to profit from volatility. We’re even close enough, with that 1% number, that we could theoretically wash away the gap with Dodgers bets if odds and probabilities stay constant over there.
Pick: Chicago (AL) to win +200. Medium confidence.
Pick: Chicago (AL) to win +200. Medium confidence.
