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 –0.8% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 5,047 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.
Both markets today.
Single-game MLB bets: On the season, we’re 55–41–2, we’re up 8.99 units, we’re up 9% (the average line on our winners has been –110). April was great, May was bad, June was good. We’re off to a good start in July.
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 101.62 units, or 9.8%.
Pittsburgh @ Los Angeles
This is a longshot, but we do like the value. We don’t think Julio Urías has it all back yet. We think Johan Oviedo’s fairly properly valued by the market.
Pick: Pittsburgh to win +190. Low confidence. (Oviedo and Urías must start.)
NLCS
The odds keep getting shorter on Atlanta, but the value’s still there, and we’ll take it while we can get it. We’re never going to have these guys as a big upside option, but they should be a great anchor for us entering October.
Pick: Atlanta to win +165. Medium confidence.
World Series
On the upside side of things, the Marlins are now our highest-upside team, passing the Giants today to take the crown. With Miami nearly as likely as Houston to make the playoffs, going by FanGraphs, we’re happy with that.
Pick: Miami to win +8000. Medium confidence.
