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 5,055 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.
Futures and a moneyline.
Single-game MLB bets: On the season, we’re 56–46–4, we’re up 4.78 units, we’re up 5% (the average line on our winners has been –110). April was great, May was bad, June was good. July’s been ok, but we could use a win.
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 129.25 units, or 12.4%.
Tampa Bay @ Texas
We’re getting to the point of the year where noncontending teams sometimes take nosedives. This is keeping us wary and shifting our methodology a little bit. The Pirates and Angels look pretty good tonight, but we aren’t sure we can trust them. We’re trying the Rangers instead.
We’re scared of Taj Bradley, whose 4.04 xERA and 3.98 FIP vastly outperform his 5.43 ERA. He’s struggled in his last three starts, though, and Nathan Eovaldi is going to get Cy Young votes. We’ll take the favorites to grab themselves another series here.
Pick: Texas to win –127. Low confidence. (Bradley and Eovaldi must start.)
ALCS
The best value out there in the futures markets today is on these two in this market. Let’s dig in.
A big part of winning in the playoffs is reaching the playoffs in the first place, and while neither is particularly likely to get a bye (the FanGraphs probabilities are 13.9% and 0.8% respectively), each has a very good chance of at least making the field. The Twins, for instance, have a better playoff probability than the Astros. That’s how bad the AL Central is.
Should they reach the table, the Twins will enjoy home field advantage in the Wild Card Series. The Blue Jays are around a tossup for that, but even on the road against (hypothetically) the Orioles, the Jays might be favored. They’re a top-five team on paper, and they’re close to that in results so far.
Pick: Toronto to win +950. Medium confidence.
Pick: Minnesota to win +1500. Medium confidence.
