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 7,499 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 use our own Gelo model as the basis for our NHL playoff futures portfolio.
Active markets today: Major League Baseball moneylines and futures. That is all. We’ve decided to let the NHL portfolio ride, aiming for a similar profit to what we ultimately earned with the NBA one which finalized last night. (The NBA profit rounded to 6%. The NHL one would round to 5%.)
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 72–66 so far, down 5.30 units. It’s been a terrible performance, one in which every sign of progress has been met with a swift comedown. To pick a selective sample, though, we’re 23–11 over the last two weeks, and we’ve cut our deficit by roughly half over that timeframe. All other selective samples are worse.
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.
St. Louis @ Miami
Seattle @ Cleveland
Arizona @ Washington
Boston @ Toronto
San Francisco @ Chicago (NL)
We’re back to the stricter interpretation of our Tuesday system this week, with no judgment calls and a fastidiously followed process. It yields these five picks, all of whom…
- Have a stronger incoming streak than their opponent.
- Have a starting pitcher whose projected FIP (by FanGraphs’s Depth Charts) is worse than at least one of his real xERA and FIP.
- Face a starting pitcher whose projected FIP is better than at least one of his real xERA and FIP.
- Have a fresher bullpen than their opponent, as measured by the projected rest-of-season fWAR of pitchers deemed unavailable/fatigued, meaning they either pitched both of the last two days or threw more than 15 pitches last night.
- Are not at risk of experiencing a rain delay tonight.
It’s not a bad crop. Three favorites, one team around even money, and a pennant contender as an underdog. If we go 3–2, we profit on the evening. If we go 5–0, we’re back within a unit of even on the season. If we go 2–3 or worse, we will kick ourselves.
Pick: St. Louis to win –128. Low confidence. (Lynn and Muñoz must start.)
Pick: Seattle to win +124. Low confidence. (Miller and McKenzie must start.)
Pick: Washington to win –122. Low confidence. (Cecconi and Irvin must start.)
Pick: Boston to win –134. Low confidence. (Houck and Bassitt must start.)
Pick: San Francisco to win –102. Low confidence. (Webb and Steele must start.)
NL East
Our Phillies push continues, as we continue to see a narrowly positive eROI on the NL East leaders. We’ll keep this up as long as that positive eROI is there, until they’re more than two units profitable for our portfolio within the NL East market.
Pick: Philadelphia to win –350. Medium confidence. x2
