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 –2.6% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 7,461 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. We’re relying on Neil Paine’s NBA forecast as the basis for our playoff futures portfolio. We use our own Gelo model as the basis for our NHL playoff futures portfolio.
Active markets today: Major League Baseball moneylines and futures. With both the NBA and NHL futures, we’re still waiting at least one more game. Both series have gone our way so far, but we don’t have the leverage to hedge on the NHL and we still prefer the value on the favorites in both leagues, which is now very expensive to obtain.
Single-day MLB bets: Last year, we finished the season up about 8%, betting strictly moneylines. We’ve tried a similar approach this year. We’re 68–62 so far, down 4.31 units. It’s been a terrible performance, one in which every sign of progress has been met with a swift comedown. But, we’re 18–7 over the last nine days, and we’ve cut our deficit by more than half.
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 place two medium-confidence bets most weekdays until sometime in September when the scenarios become more specific.
Miami @ New York (NL)
We definitely have concerns about the Mets still coming off the travel abroad, but Luis Severino’s been great this year, and that trip gave him a few extra days of rest. Roddery Muñoz, meanwhile, has had a really hard time at the major league level. It’s pricey, but it’s our best play today.
Pick: New York (NL) to win –193. Low confidence. (Muñoz and Severino must start.)
ALCS
There’s value on the Mariners today, which is nice because they’d slid to being an unprofitable pennant scenario for our portfolio. We love the starting pitching. The starting pitching is something we can support in October. No, it didn’t work out in 2022, but they did go 2–3 against playoff competition, and they were eliminated by the eventual World Series champions. Not a bad showing.
Pick: Seattle to win +700. Medium confidence.
NL East
Even after last night’s loss, this is a good price, with the Braves continuing their little slide. We’ll keep chipping away at this deficit as long as the market will have us.
Pick: Philadelphia to win –500. Medium confidence.
