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 –0.9% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 5,317 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.6% across 1,739 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. Movelor is heavily used in making college football picks, with some references to ESPN’s FPI and SP+. FPI is heavily used in making NFL picks, especially futures.
MLB futures, NFL futures, and some football tonight at both the professional and the college level. Here’s the context on each market.
MLB futures: We began the season with 750 units in our MLB futures portfolio. 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 those 750 units is 109.74 units, or 14.6%.The Wild Card Series went well for us, but we’re still vulnerable in four of the sixteen LDS scenarios, and two of those would be disasters for us. Those are the edges we’re focused on shoring up.
NFL futures: We began the season with 150 units in our NFL futures portfolio, with the intent being to spend 100 of those over the season’s eighteen weeks and keep 50 in reserve for hedging and arbitrage opportunities. Again, this is circular, because we use FPI to make the picks, but FPI’s probabilities show us with an expected return on the 150 units of 7.54 units, or 2.5%, with only 28 units invested so far.
Single-game college football bets: On the season, we’re 24–23–1, and 24–21–1 on games involving at least one FBS team. We’re down 1.10 units, and down 2%. That isn’t great, but we’ve been much better the last two weeks, so if you believe in trends, they’re positive.
Single-game NFL bets: On the season, we’re 3–8–5, we’re down 5.39 units, we’re down 34%. It’s a small sample, but we’ve been getting smoked.
Division Series
Our big vulnerabilities are the Rangers and the Dodgers. There is no value available on the Dodgers from what we’re seeing. We’re going to keep looking for it, but the Diamondbacks are currently a bit underestimated there, maybe because the Dodgers went 5–0 against them after April. Regardless of the cause, we can’t get value on the Dodgers today, but we have it here on the Rangers, and we’re going to take it, with tons of upside on the Orioles to use as leverage. Six units today, probably more tomorrow and Saturday.
Pick: Texas to win +107. Medium confidence. x3
ALCS
We have some smaller vulnerability on the Astros (the nightmare scenarios are those where all three of the Dodgers, Rangers, and Astros make the LCS), and with value here, we’ll address it that little bit more. The Twins are underestimated as far as next week goes, but again, we have leverage, and the Rangers and Orioles are both overvalued in LCS markets, from what we can tell.
Pick: Houston to win +185. Medium confidence.
World Series
We don’t have downside on Atlanta, but our upside is very low. There’s value here, and this helps the specific scenario where the Braves and Astros meet in the World Series. That’s an unlikely scenario, but it’s also the most likely, and keeping our feet above the lava on it is preferable to the alternative.
Pick: Atlanta to win +310. Medium confidence.
NFC
The nice thing for the 49ers is that the NFC West is not the NFC East. The Eagles have the Cowboys to worry about, and the Niners don’t. If it’s San Francisco and Philadelphia atop the NFC, the more we can get on San Francisco now, the better it should turn out for us, especially with more that can go wrong for the Eagles than can go wrong for these guys.
Pick: San Francisco to win +210. Low confidence.
AFC
This is the opposite situation: The advantage for us is that one of the Bills and Dolphins is going to win the AFC East, and that’s going to leave us with good enough value on one of these to cover the hit we’ll expect to take on the other. We’re lacking on the Eagles in the NFC, we’re lacking on the Chiefs in the AFC, but it is so early and we have good positions on each of their foils.
Pick: Buffalo to win +400. Low confidence.
Pick: Miami to win +600. Low confidence.
AFC North
The Ravens are a win over the Steelers this weekend away from leading the AFC North by more than a game. Even with a loss, they’ll only be half a game back of Cleveland. They’re in good position, and they’re the one team in this division giving substantial reason for confidence. They’re so banged up, but they’re still set up well for a first-place finish in a messy set of teams.
Pick: Baltimore to win –120. Low confidence. x2
Western Kentucky @ Louisiana Tech
Louisiana Tech wasn’t playing well before Hank Bachmeier went down, and they haven’t played better in his absence. Whether he’s back tonight or not, Western Kentucky should score a whole bunch of points and Louisiana Tech should struggle to keep up. It might not turn out exactly that way, but it’s a pretty simple situation.
Pick: Western Kentucky –6 (–109). Low confidence.
Chicago @ Washington
I don’t know if the Commanders are three points better than the Bears, but I do think people continue to misunderstand the Bears. I’ve seen the Bears listed as the biggest disappointment of the season so far. The problem is not that they’ve disappointed. The problem is that all of this should have been predictable. The message with the Bears being so bad is not that they’ve underperformed their potential. It’s that we, the average media, drank too much kool-aid even if we only asked if they could win nine games. This is one of the worst organizations in sports. I think the best move we can make tonight is to bet on them to play like that.
Pick: Washington to win –6 (–110). Low confidence.
