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 –0.6% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 5,118 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +3.1% across 1,617 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. FPI is heavily used in making NFL picks, especially futures.
We’ve got a lot going on today. Here’s the context on each market.
Single-game MLB bets: On the season, we’re 91–62–4, we’re up 20.91 units, we’re up 13% (the average line on our winners has been –110).
MLB futures: We began the season with 750 units in our MLB futures 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. 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 the 750 units (based on what we’ve bet so far) is 78.17 units, or 10.4%.
College football futures: We started the season with 300 units in our college football futures portfolio, with the intent being to spend 200 of those over the season’s fifteen weeks and keep 100 in reserve for hedging and arbitrage opportunities. We had 28 units invested prior to today’s.
NFL futures: We’re starting 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. Today’s plays are our first investments.
Single-game NFL bets: Today’s is our first NFL single-game bet, in the whole history of these published picks.
Arizona @ Chicago (NL)
This is a steep price for what this matchup is on paper, but Ryne Nelson’s struggling, the Cubs are rolling, and Javier Assad has been dominant in his last two starts. The Diamondbacks are tough, but the Cubs are playing some of the best baseball in the majors right now, and with limited options elsewhere, we’re going to take them to keep it up.
Pick: Chicago (NL) to win –162. Low confidence. (Nelson and Assad must start.)
ALCS
This is a value play, and that’s a wild thing to say when you’re getting the favorite in a market. The Astros are in full control of the AL West, even if it looks close in the standings, and they’ve got the best roster in the AL on paper. The value here is good, and the probability, as far as baseball goes, is high.
Pick: Houston to win +300. Medium confidence.
World Series
It’s a very similar situation with this. The market still doesn’t seem to believe Atlanta is that much better than everyone else. We’re worried—the Dodgers are great, and we haven’t been able to find value on them all year outside of a few little division plays—but that’s all the more reason to build as much value on this as we can.
Pick: Atlanta to win +300. Medium confidence.
CFP National Championship
We’re doubling up on Alabama with this one, and putting another unit down on Ohio State as well. Our conception of the national picture is that there are four teams we wouldn’t be surprised to see win it: Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State, and Tennessee. Why no Michigan? While Michigan’s most likely a better team than Tennessee, we haven’t seen Michigan hang with a top SEC foe. We’ve seen that as recently as last year from both Ohio State and Tennessee. It’s a matchup thing, and a matter of the size of the stage. Of course we know Michigan can win it all, but we’d be surprised, and I think that’s fair.
With regard to Alabama and Ohio State specifically: We expect Alabama to make a statement on Saturday night against Texas, and while we don’t know how much it’ll really mean, because we aren’t convinced Texas is fully where it wants to be just yet, we expect markets to contract around the Tide. With Ohio State, we like what value’s opened up since they underwhelmed against Indiana. We don’t have concerns about Ohio State’s offense. It’ll be fine. The defense remains the question, especially in the trenches, and that was not among the concerns for the Buckeyes coming out of Saturday. It’s still a concern, but it wasn’t heightened. We like the price.
Pick: Alabama to win +650. Low confidence.
Pick: Alabama to win +650. Low confidence.
Pick: Ohio State to win +1200. Low confidence.
SEC
We have concerns about Georgia’s focus, and maybe those will be disproven, but for the time being, we’re going to stock up on Bama and the Vols across multiple markets. We’re not going to win all these bets, and some will completely flame out, but we’re casting a very wide net, which seems like the thing to do in a sport with more than 100 teams.
Pick: Alabama to win +220. Low confidence.
Pick: Tennessee to win +1600. Low confidence.
Big 12
We had a bad Big 12 weekend, with TCU and Texas Tech both picks we made last week and both looking quite bad. Each, interestingly enough, is still a positive-eROI pick with our Movelor probabilities today, which is either encouraging or highly concerning.
We had one other pick which didn’t flame out, and that’s Kansas State, and we’re doubling up on it here. We believe K-State is the Big 12 favorite, and if they’re not, we think it’s Oklahoma, but the market seems to be with us on the Sooners. What we’re doing here, then, is fading Texas and trying to create some leverage. We want to have high upside on one of the two teams in the Big 12 Championship. We really like Kansas State to be among that pair.
There’s longshot value on Iowa State and Cincinnati, Cincy thanks to its schedule and Iowa State thanks to the cracks shown by those two Texas schools. We don’t love either team, there’s a ton of uncertainty here, but 100-to-1 is sometimes a good price, and we think this is one of those times.
Pick: Kansas State to win +500. Low confidence.
Pick: Cincinnati to win +10000. Low confidence.
Pick: Iowa State to win +10000. Low confidence.
ACC
Don’t underestimate the value of a single win. Louisville’s got one in conference play, and it’s got a very advantageous schedule on the road to Charlotte. We like this value a lot. The ACC is a 1-team league, and it’s not Louisville, but someone has to play Florida State at the end of this.
Pick: Louisville to win +1000. Low confidence.
Mountain West
The team sucking up oxygen in this market is Boise State, and we don’t understand that after Washington beat them so badly on Saturday. Give us the other two favorites, one of whom handled a really tough game well over at Purdue.
Pick: Fresno State to win +200. Low confidence.
Pick: Air Force to win +375. Low confidence.
Pac-12
We’re going back to last week’s playbook with the Pac-12 this week, and we like the call. Our conception of this league is that all five good teams are pretty comparable right now, with USC holding the highest ceiling but being the least known quantity, Utah holding the highest floor but only if Cam Rising gets back in time, and Oregon State enjoying the easiest schedule. Those things are all working towards Utah and the Beavs. We’re fading USC, and we don’t believe in Oregon or Washington at the price we’d have to pay.
Pick: Utah to win +660. Low confidence.
Pick: Oregon State to win +1000. Low confidence.
Super Bowl
This is not a ringing endorsement of the Vikings. The odds are 55-to-1. But the NFC North is very open, and the NFC North champion gets a nice playoff situation, especially because the NFC South champion is likely to be even worse. Sometimes, it’s helpful to grab value based on path.
Pick: Minnesota to win +5500. Low confidence.
NFC
Speaking of which: Even with all the Lions hype from last December ‘til tonight, this price is available, and it’s a good one. This is also a helpful counterbalance to the Vikings play, and partially a reflection of how overvalued both the Bears and Packers likely are.
Pick: Detroit to win +1200. Low confidence.
AFC
The Bills are a good bet to break through this year, and this is a good price on which to hope they do it.
Pick: Buffalo to win +550. Low confidence.
AFC North
These are long odds for a division favorite, and some of that is the AFC North being tough and some of it is probably misplaced concern about Joe Burrow’s calf.
Pick: Cincinnati to win +180. Low confidence.
AFC South
Finally, our weirdest pick, but one where we trust the numbers: The Texans should be bad, but they’re getting Cardinals treatment from some, and the Jaguars have something of a Lions quality but with the smoke picking up a whole lot over the last couple days. The Lions being a sleeper became a meme, and everyone pivoted to Jacksonville.
Pick: Houston to win +1000. Low confidence.
Detroit @ Kansas City
There’s a lot of noise around this one, with the Lions so trendy they’ve become the NFC North favorite and the Chiefs possibly missing Travis Kelce and the Chiefs definitely missing Chris Jones. Add in speculation about a Super Bowl hangover, limited preseason reps, and other general uncertainty and it seems to be leading markets towards Detroit.
We like Kansas City.
The Chiefs are 7–3 against the spread in Week 1 in Andy Reid’s tenure, and that doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but it certainly isn’t a red flag. There are instances in which it’s reasonable to expect regression to the mean, but I don’t know that this evaluation is one of those instances. It’s hard to stay good in the NFL, but Kansas City’s done it, and we haven’t seen enough from Detroit yet to do much believing. Give us the favorites. We’ll give you the points.
Pick: Kansas City –4.5 (–105). Low confidence.
