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 5,026 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.
Two markets today.
Single-game MLB bets: On the season, we’re 46–31, we’re up 8.19 units, we’re up 11% (the average line on our winners has been –117). April was great, May was bad, June has been good so far.
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 105.92 units, or 10.2%.
Philadelphia @ Arizona
We’ve seen a lot of value in Aaron Nola this year, which makes it interesting that FanGraphs flags this one as positive-value. The guy hasn’t been bad, but he’s given up at least one home run in ten straight starts, and he’s averaging a home run allowed per outing on the season. Ryne Nelson hasn’t been great, but he’s been fine, and the Phillies used more of their better arms last night out of the bullpen. Maybe those guys are available today if it’s close, but it’s hard to believe they’ll be at their full capacity pitching in a day game after a night game. The Diamondbacks should have the advantage here.
Pick: Arizona to win +117. Low confidence. (Nola and Nelson must start.)
ALCS
A little history lesson on these bets:
In 2019, we liked the Nationals’ odds when they were wallowing near last place in the National League towards the end of May. Part of what was so enticing was the top of that rotation, and part was that they’d started so poorly and people believed them. A third part, though, was that the Nationals had a well-established tradition at that point of losing immediately upon making the playoffs. It was a silly thing, but it had become established truth, to the point that if I had to guess, it was baked into their futures odds, subconsciously or not.
I think the same thing’s happening with the Twins.
Yes, there’s history of losing in October, but that’s natural for a team in the AL Central, baseball’s worst division in this modern era. AL Central teams are generally playoff underdogs. The bar to meet expectations is lower, so going 0-for-whatever it’s been is less noteworthy. Is the losing extreme with the Twins? Sure. But it’s a small sample, and it’s probably responsible for some of the value we’re seeing on them now.
Pick: Minnesota to win +1700. Medium confidence.
NLCS
Our beloved Giants have played themselves into playoff position and either nobody has noticed or nobody believes it’s true. Maybe it’s that they only have three healthy starting pitchers right now. Maybe it’s that Thairo Estrada wasn’t a good prospect. Whatever the reason, the market isn’t buying the Giants yet, but we still are, and our two-headed monster of them and the Diamondbacks which was initially designed to get just one team into the playoffs might end up with both heads alive in October. That would be a very good thing for our cause.
Pick: San Francisco to win +2500. Medium confidence.
