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 –2% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 7,333 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2% across 2,268 completed high and medium-confidence picks. The low confidence picks are the problem. Most of our picks are in the low confidence category.
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 from 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. We rely heavily on FanGraphs for all our MLB action. We’re relying on Neil Paine’s NBA forecast as the basis for our playoff futures portfolio. We use our own Gelo model as the basis for our NHL playoff futures portfolio.
Active markets today: Major League Baseball moneylines, plus MLB, NBA, and NHL futures.
Single-day MLB bets: Last year, we finished the season up about 8%, betting strictly moneylines. We’re trying the same approach this year. We’re 22–26 so far, down 4.17 units. We’re on another cold stretch right now.
MLB futures: We have a great history with these, though the last two years we’ve only made small profits. In both 2019 and 2021, I believe we recorded better than a 50% ROI. In 2020, we lost about 25% of our portfolio. We began this season with 750 units in our 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. We place two medium-confidence bets most weekdays until sometime in September when the scenarios become more specific.
NBA futures: We’ve only done these once before, but they went well. I believe we made a 7% return on our investment last year. We started at the beginning of the Play-In Tournament with a 100-unit portfolio. Right now, we’re mostly just placing one future per day. We’re up 2.39 units so far.
NHL futures: We’ve had mixed results on these. In 2022, we lost 25% of our futures portfolio. Last year, we made a 33% return. We began on the first day of the playoffs with a 100-unit portfolio. Right now, we’re playing just one future per day.
Atlanta @ Seattle
Reynaldo López might be for real, and at this point, he’s pitched well enough that even a run of 5.00-FIP ball would leave him with great stats midway through June. Where we think the value arises here is Luis Castillo. So much attention is being paid to George Kirby, Logan Gilbert, and Bryce Miller that people seem to be ignoring Castillo, who trails only Kirby among the four in xERA and FIP. Castillo’s ERA isn’t outstanding so far, but he’s pitching really well. Here’s hoping he can do it against the best lineup in the league.
Pick: Seattle to win +110. Low confidence. (López and Castillo must start.)
AL West
We continue what’s effectively a fade of the Rangers in the AL West market, where our profit/loss scenarios given current bets look like this:
| Team | Units |
| Oakland | 390.0 |
| Anaheim | 90.0 |
| Seattle | 1.0 |
| Houston | -0.2 |
| Texas | -12.0 |
This might not look particularly good, but the expected value on these 12 units of bets is a 1.65-unit profit. The upside we have on Seattle looks negligible, but it isn’t when viewed as a percentage, and having Houston so close to even is a good situation. Also, the Angels are bad, but they’re better than 2% likely to win the West. That future and the Oakland one will probably both burn out, but if they end up in the race, the Seattle/Houston/Texas conversation becomes moot, because our leverage will be enormous.
Pick: Seattle to win +160. Medium confidence.
World Series
The Red Sox become the eighth team in the World Series section of our portfolio, almost all longshots. That second part will change. But on the topic of Boston:
We’ve seen FanGraphs value the Red Sox early in a few recent seasons. I think it’s happened four straight years now. In two of the three before this one, it hasn’t worked out, but when it did work, in 2021, it was massive for us, fueling our 50%+ return on the whole portfolio. That’s even with our AL East, ALCS, and World Series futures on Boston all failing to hit. We obtained the leverage, and we used it. Which all goes to say: The Red Sox don’t need to win it all for this 75-to-1 play to be valuable in October.
Pick: Boston to win +7500. Medium confidence.
Stanley Cup
Gelo is really high on the Rangers. Gelo respects the Panthers and Hurricanes. It views those three teams as the best three teams in hockey. Given the Rangers and Hurricanes will most likely play one another next round, Gelo is poised to have its “best team in hockey” be the winner of that series entering the conference finals. More likely than not, that team will play the Panthers, who are currently poised to be the second-best team in hockey.
Long story short, we could either keep putting bets on the Rangers—whose value we like but whose probability is limited—or we could pivot to something like this. We’ll keep looking for opportunities on teams we aren’t in on already, but in the absence of those, if these sorts of lines persist, we’ll keep chasing them until all of the remaining Eastern Conference teams are in a healthy position in our portfolio.
What’s creating the opportunity? The market really likes the Oilers and the Knights. It really, really likes those teams. Gelo doesn’t buy it, and given that the Knights evidently aren’t entirely invincible and serious doubts persist around the Oilers, we’re happy to follow Gelo into this play.
Pick: Eastern Conference to win –115. Low confidence.
Second Round: Denver vs. Minnesota
It’s an expensive price, but it’s flashing positive eROI through the method we use to estimate NBA series probabilities in these first two rounds. Also, the split between the cheapest options on both teams is pretty narrow. The market has a wide divide on these, so if sportsbooks regress towards one another with these odds, it might lead to this price getting more expensive over the days leading up to Game 1.
Overall, we have plenty of upside on the Timberwolves from our Western Conference future on them. We’ll keep plugging away at building value on the Nuggets as well. The probability of Nuggets vs. Celtics is too high to not be prepared for it.
Pick: Denver to win –190. Low confidence.
