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 7,356 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’re trying the same approach this year. We’re 33–35 so far, down 4.93 units. We started poorly, we rallied, and we were on another cold stretch going into this week. We pivoted a little on Monday, and we’ve gone 8–4 over the last three days, making 1.42 units in the process. In short, we don’t know what direction these are headed right now.
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 2.79 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 one unit so far.
San Francisco @ Colorado
You never want to bet on the Rockies these days, but with a smaller selection of games and with the value this good, we’re going for it. Cal Quantrill isn’t great or anything, but he’s outperformed expectations so far, meaning his true capacity shouldn’t be worse than those expectations, and he’s coming off a dominant outing in Pittsburgh last week. Keaton Winn, meanwhile, had a bad enough start against the Phillies to reset what we think of him. What do we think? He’s solid, and the Giants should be favored, but not by this much.
Pick: Colorado to win +139. Low confidence. (Winn and Quantrill must start.)
AL East
We think the Yankees should be favored in the East rather than the Orioles, and we’re seeing the Yankees favored instead of the Orioles in some books. So, given the chance to get New York at longer than break-even odds, we’re going to do just that, pushing the Yankees into a profitable scenario for us in the AL East.
Pick: New York to win +110. Medium confidence.
ALCS
This doesn’t make the Yankees a profitable ALCS option for us, but it does get us a little bit in on them while the opportunity’s here. The concern is always injuries, but that’s more a concern for everybody else, too, than the market’s letting on.
Pick: New York to win +350. Medium confidence.
Second Round: New York vs. Indiana
There isn’t a lot we like in the market today, and we think this is probably only flashing positive value because the Knicks are banged up and statistical models mostly don’t know that. But, our three live second round bets are on the Mavericks, Nuggets, and Pacers, and while our long-term prognosis remains good, we don’t want too much short-term bleeding.
Pick: New York to win –420. Low confidence.
Second Round: Vancouver vs. Edmonton
I think this is the moment of peak disrespect for the Canucks, and we’re going to treat it as such. Are they the worst team left in this? Yes, probably so. But they’ve got a 1–0 lead, and the possibility that the Oilers are overvalued is a strong one.
Pick: Vancouver to win +120. Low confidence.
