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% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 3,418 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of 0.1% across 773 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 SP+ is often used in making college football picks against the spread. ESPN’s FPI is heavily used in making NFL picks.
NFL and MLB futures today. For unit context: We started the season with 520 units in our MLB futures fund (20 units per week, 4 units per weekday) and an additional 520 in reserve for potential hedging. We began the season with 50 units in our NFL futures portfolio (2 per week, once a week) plus an extra 50 in reserve for hedges.
Super Bowl
How can you walk away from Week 1 with anything but a positive impression of the Bucs’ chances? We’re wary of ascribing too much significance to the first games of the season, but the Bucs’ defense looks good, the Packers’ offense has an uphill climb ahead, and there’s no competition for Tampa Bay within its own division, making its path to a bye and home field advantage the best in the sport. We’ll hop on early.
Pick: Tampa Bay to win +800. Low confidence.
NFC East
This is a longshot as far as division bets go, but we’ll get on board with the Commanders as well. With Dak Prescott out a few weeks, the Cowboys are hamstrung, and though the Eagles dominated most of their game against the Lions, the Lions have yet to prove themselves and the Eagles have plenty of questions. This is looking like a chaotic division yet again, and Washington isn’t badly positioned to win it.
Pick: Washington to win +600. Low confidence.
World Series
More on these two today. Yesterday’s results gave each an additional game of clearance in their respective seeding races, and with these plays, we’re at the following profit/loss within the World Series portion of our portfolio with each potential winner:
- Los Angeles: -130
- New York (NL): +50
- Houston: -28
- Atlanta: +204
- New York (AL): -82
- Toronto: +135
- San Diego: +256
- Philadelphia: +228
- St. Louis: -130
- Tampa Bay: +84
- Seattle: +24
- Cleveland: -130
- Milwaukee: +44
- Chicago (AL): -130
- Minnesota: -130
We do have a lot down on all three likely Wild Cards in the ALCS market, and a little down on the AL Central trio, but aside from that, this is more or less representative of where our situation stands. Barring a big shift in a market over these next two weeks, we’ll probably be looking at a playoff picture with two significant liabilities for us in each league and strength everywhere else. On the American League side, it’ll be important that the AL Central champion loses in the Wild Card Series, which means we’ll probably hedge against that. From there, we’ll likely be in a 2 v. 2 situation, and if the AL Central champion does lose the WCS, our upside should outweigh our downside enough to hedge and leave us healthily profitable. In the National League, we’ll have upside on our NL East champion, giving us two chances to beat the Cardinals before the LCS while the NL East runner up (or the Phillies or Padres, neither of whom are quite as good but both of whom are competitive) tries to take down the Dodgers.
Our goal is approximately a 225-unit profit, and given where the rest of our portfolio stands we probably want around 110 units of that from the World Series market. I’d imagine we’ll be putting more onto Atlanta and the Mets in the coming days, but we may also try to simply build our upside even higher than it already is. The odds on the clear Wild Card teams—the Padres, Phillies, and Blue Jays especially—should drop as they close up their berths, so it does make sense to keep pounding them now.
Pick: Toronto to win +2000. Medium confidence.
Pick: Philadelphia to win +3300. Medium confidence.
