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 4,964 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. FiveThirtyEight’s models are heavily used in making NBA and soccer futures picks. FanGraphs is heavily used in making MLB picks. Our NHL picks are based on Gelo, our own model.
Back to all four markets today, as MLB futures return from the weekend.
On single-game MLB bets: On the season, we’re 39–29, we’re up 5.16 units, we’re up 8% (the average line on our winners has been –114). April was great, May was bad, June is young but fine so far.
For the 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.
For the NBA future: We began the postseason with 75 units in our NBA futures portfolio, with the intent being to spend one a day over the postseason’s 69 days (if there’s an NBA Finals Game 7). With many payouts coming before the end of the postseason, this was designed to leave us with at least 25 units on hand at all times should we see an arbitrage opportunity or want to hedge. We’re up 17.63 units so far.
For the NHL future: We began the postseason with 75 units in our NHL futures portfolio, with the intent being to spend one a day over the postseason’s 63 days (if there’s a Stanley Cup Finals Game 7). The idea is the same as the NBA—we’ve aimed to always have at least 25 units on hand at all times should we see an arbitrage opportunity or want to hedge. We’re up 5.49 units so far.
Seattle @ San Diego
Logan Gilbert’s having a great year, but he’s been bit by the home run bug lately, whereas Joe Musgrove’s been a little disappointing overall but seems to have had some bad luck relative to contact quality, perhaps especially early in the season (because that’s when his home runs came). We like the Padres for the second straight night.
Pick: San Diego to win –125. Low confidence. (Gilbert and Musgrove must start.)
ALCS
It’s early to be looking at the playoff bracket, but it’s not entirely irrational. Part of why the Twins are presenting such good value right now is that their likeliest eventual seed would leave them facing the worst wild card by record in the first round with—more likely than the market says—the Rangers waiting in the ALDS and the Astros and the second-best wild card paired with the Rays across the bracket. We’ll stock up a little more on Minnesota.
Pick: Minnesota to win +1600. Medium confidence.
World Series
And speaking of stocking up, two more down on the Diamondbacks. We still like at least one of them and the Giants to make the playoffs, and we expect our massive positions on each to give us some leverage when that happens.
Pick: Arizona to win +5500. Medium confidence.
NBA Finals (Hedge)
Again, we only see value on the Heat in this series, and we have plenty of upside on the Heat already. We’ll continue to limit our downside.
Pick: Denver to win –275. Low confidence.
Stanley Cup: No Bet.
We got another piece of a unit of cushion with last night’s MLB moneyline win, but we still only had 1.50 units of space entering today, meaning: In our best-case NBA/NHL scenario, the one where the Heat and Knights win the title, our all-time balance would be +1.50 units given all our bets before today’s. With the unit spent above on the Denver hedge, that’s now +0.50 units. We want a path to all-time profitability and we don’t want to lower our NHL floor by investing even more heavily in the Knights, so we’ll let our work ride for the day (and likely at least tomorrow as well).
We chose the NBA one over this one not because the value’s better—it’s worse, the Panthers value is less bad than the Nuggets value—but because the probability of the Nuggets winning their series is so much higher than that of the Panthers winning theirs. We could more significantly better our worst-case scenario—the one where the Nuggets and Panthers both win—by hedging on the Panthers at their long odds, but we’d rather address the most probable scenario—where the Nuggets and Knights win.
