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 -5.0% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 3,554 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of 0.6% across 899 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.
MLB and NFL futures today. Unit context: We started the MLB season with 520 units available to bet on our two-bets-a-day, five-days-a-week cadence, plus another 520 available in reserve for hedges. We started the NFL season with 50 units available to bet on our two-bets-a-week, once-a-week cadence, plus another 50 available in reserve for hedges. (We’re planning on doing our soccer and college football futures for the week tomorrow, and possibly NHL, but that’s up in the air and may need to wait until after the weekend.)
World Series
Our futures situation heading into the playoffs is this:
We have large upside on the Rays, Blue Jays, Padres, and Phillies, and large but not quite as large of upside on Atlanta, the Mets, and the Mariners. We covered some of the gap between the Blue Jays and Mariners yesterday, taking a valuable Wild Card Series play on Seattle. We’re covering some of the gap between the Mets and the Padres today, taking this valuable option. Our situation coming out of this weekend will remain good if at least one of the Rays and Phillies gets to the Division Series, and both of them winning would put us in a great spot. There isn’t a clear route to hedge out of that at the moment, though. It’s still expensive. If either takes Game 1, we’ll look harder at hedging on Saturday. For yesterday, today, and tomorrow, we’re still only taking positive-value plays.
Pick: New York (NL) to win +1000. Medium confidence.
Pick: New York (NL) to win +1000. Medium confidence.
Super Bowl
The Bills are eating up a lot of the oxygen in the Super Bowl market, which continues to create opportunity on other contenders. This week, it’s Kansas City, who aside from that inexplicable loss in Indianapolis has done everything you’d ask a potential champion to do.
Pick: Kansas City to win +800. Low confidence.
NFC North
The Packers do still trail their division on a tiebreaker, but the Vikings haven’t looked like anything special since Week 1, and there’s less upside to believe in with them than with Green Bay. We’ll grab this while it’s here.
Pick: Green Bay to win -110. Low confidence.
