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 -4.8% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 3,611 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of 0.8% across 949 completed high and medium-confidence picks (low confidence picks, these days, are in experimental markets for us). Our ETA to get the overall number back profitable is currently November 5th, the date of a potential World Series Game 7.
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 have a gambling problem, get help.
Lines for these come from the Vegas consensus or the closest approximation available at the time picks are written, unless otherwise noted. For futures bets (in both sports and politics) and motorsports bets, odds are taken from the better option between Bovada and BetOnline as our best approximation of the Vegas consensus, which isn’t currently/accurately available online. FanGraphs is heavily used in making MLB picks. FiveThirtyEight’s SPI is heavily used in making soccer picks. ESPN’s FPI is heavily used in making NFL picks.
NFL and MLB futures today. Still not sure when we’ll get back to our other futures portfolios, but hopefully tomorrow (“hopefully tomorrow” is an unfortunate slogan we’ve found ourselves adopting lately).
For unit context, on the MLB futures: We started the season with 1,040 units available for futures and hedges against those futures. Entering today, we’ve netted 10.74 units of profit, and we have 446.74 units in the bankroll, with 628 units pending.
For unit context, on the NFL futures: We started the season with 50 units available for our two-bets-a-week, once-a-week cadence, plus another 50 available in reserve for hedges.
ALCS
36 units on this, which is good value and also helps our portfolio. This does flip us into wanting the Yankees to beat the Astros, but it raises our worst case to a small-enough liability that we can easily hedge out of it if the need arises.
Pick: New York (AL) to win +280. Medium confidence. x18
World Series
Just four units on this, but it’s also good value and also helps the portfolio. The Phillies have worse downside for us than the Padres, and there’s no way to change that without taking a bad-value bet, so we’ll take the good-value one that leaves them with higher upside in an effort to provide some balance. Here’s how the scenarios now look:
| Winner | Loser | P/L |
| Phillies | Yankees | 474.14 |
| Padres | Yankees | 467.54 |
| Phillies | Astros | 321.44 |
| Padres | Astros | 314.84 |
| Astros | Padres | 0.34 |
| Astros | Phillies | -39.66 |
| Yankees | Padres | -40.46 |
| Yankees | Phillies | -80.46 |
Pick: Philadelphia to win +375. Medium confidence. x2
AFC
With the Bills’ big win in Kansas City, the bye is clearly in their sights, and while there’s a lot of football to be played, having neither them nor the Eagles in our portfolio was too uncomfortable. There’s value here, and we’ll take that value.
Pick: Buffalo to win +145. Low confidence.
NFC West
With the Packers now reasonably the underdog in the NFC North, the division side of our portfolio’s a little sketchier. We’ll address that by adding this relatively high-probability play out west. The NFC West is not yet the Niners’, but so far they look like the best team in that division, and we could use more of those.
Pick: San Francisco to win +120. Low confidence.
