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% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 7,398 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +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, plus MLB, NBA, and NHL futures.
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 46–50 so far, down 8.68 units. It’s been a terrible performance, but for whatever it’s worth, we’ve won four in a row going into today.
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.
NBA futures: We’ve only done these once before, but they went well. I believe we made a 7% return on our investment last year. We started at the beginning of the Play-In Tournament with a 100-unit portfolio. Right now, we’re mostly just placing one future per day. We’re up 1.17 units so far.
NHL futures: We’ve had mixed results on these. In 2022, we lost 25% of our futures portfolio. Last year, we made a 33% return. We began on the first day of the playoffs with a 100-unit portfolio. Right now, we’re mostly placing just one future per day. We’re down 2.20 units so far.
New York (AL) @ Anaheim
Carlos Rodón’s underlying numbers haven’t been as good this year as his ERA, while Patrick Sandoval’s only red flag is a three-home run day his last time out.
Sandoval’s home runs can be an issue, as can be his walks, but he isn’t tracking far from his career average on the year on either of those. His .348 BABIP isn’t going to stay that high, especially with an xERA (4.00) that almost exactly matches his FIP (3.90). The Angels are justifiably underdogs, but they’re being undervalued here, especially with Clay Holmes possibly unavailable for New York after working two days in a row.
Pick: Anaheim to win +149. Low confidence. (Rodón and Sandoval must start.)
World Series
The Braves are far from out of this thing, even without one of the best baseball players in the world. They still have a good number of the other best baseball players in the world, and if their last three postseasons have taught us anything, it’s that October is a weird month in the baseball world. This gets them back to a profitable World Series scenario for us, and we’re happy to have them in the fold.
In higher-value plays, even with the odds shortening the Padres are a good buy. They’re in playoff position right now, and they’re a better team on paper than the Giants, Diamondbacks, and everyone in the NL Central. We’ll continue loading up.
Pick: Atlanta to win +800. Medium confidence.
Pick: San Diego to win +4500. Medium confidence.
NBA Finals
More of the same here. The odds are too short on the Mavericks for it to make much sense for us to hedge. We could really use another win by the Timberwolves tonight.
Pick: Boston to win –220. Low confidence.
NHL Western Conference
We’re definitely nervous about the Oilers, but we don’t have enough leverage to do anything about that unless we’re going to accept some losses and take bad-value bets prematurely. The value’s still on Dallas, who’s still the better team and does retain home-ice advantage, even if they haven’t always made the most of that this postseason.
Pick: Dallas to win –115. Low confidence.
