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 –2.6% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 7,454 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.2% 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 and futures. With both the NBA and NHL futures, we’re again waiting at least one more game. Both series have gone our way so far, but we don’t have the leverage to hedge and we still prefer the value on the favorites, which is now very expensive to obtain.
Single-day MLB bets: Last year, we finished the season up about 8%, betting strictly moneylines. We’ve tried a similar approach this year. We’re 66–57 so far, down 0.98 units. It’s been a terrible performance, one in which every sign of progress has been met with a swift comedown. That said, we’re 16–2 over the last seven days, and we could get profitable on the season with a good night tonight.
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.
Washington @ Detroit
Chicago (NL) @ Tampa Bay
Philadelphia @ Boston
Miami @ New York (NL)
Anaheim @ Arizona
Houston @ San Francisco
We’re doing our Tuesday thing again this week, and if you’re looking for a broader explanation, we had that explanation last week and you can read it here.
Three minor notes:
- Picking against Zack Wheeler breaks some of our rules, but we like catching Philadelphia coming off the Europe trip, especially with Realmuto going on the IL today.
- José Suarez isn’t a full starting pitcher, but Jordan Montgomery has struggled a lot, and the Angels’ bullpen is fresh enough that picking Anaheim doesn’t break our rules.
- Picking against Ronel Blanco breaks some of our rules, but we’re skeptical of him, with some possible regression over his last two starts, and his only other post-suspension start coming against the A’s.
One bigger note:
- These are mostly underdogs! Last week we mostly had favorites, using the same criteria. This is a riskier place to be, but it does change how many we need to win for it to have been a successful evening.
Pick: Washington to win +102. Low confidence. (Parker and Maeda must start.)
Pick: Chicago (NL) to win +122. Low confidence. (Taillon and Eflin must start.)
Pick: Boston to win +138. Low confidence. (Wheeler and Crawford must start.)
Pick: New York (NL) to win –148. Low confidence. (Luzardo and Megill must start.)
Pick: Anaheim to win +136. Low confidence. (Suarez and Montgomery must start.)
Pick: San Francisco to win –112. Low confidence. (Blanco and Hicks must start.)
NLCS
Futures markets are a little all over the place on the Reds right now, with some overreacting to the team heating up and some underreacting to the recent winning streak. These odds come from one of the latter, and they mark the first time we’ve seen positive value on Cincinnati in the pennant market. We’ll happily add them to our mix.
Pick: Cincinnati to win +5000. Medium confidence.
World Series
This is the best value we’re seeing today, and while it isn’t as great as we often can find (it’s only got a +21% eROI, using our beloved FanGraphs playoff odds), it’s a good piece. The Twins are great on paper by AL Central standards, and there’s a lot of season left.
Pick: Minnesota to win +3000. Medium confidence.
