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 5,307 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.6% across 1,730 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. Movelor is heavily used in making college football picks, with some references to ESPN’s FPI and SP+. FPI is heavily used in making NFL picks, especially futures.
Just MLB futures today. We’re pushing college football futures back to tomorrow. NFL futures for the week will either be published tomorrow or Thursday—not sure about that one yet. Here’s the context on the portfolio.
MLB futures: We began the season with 750 units in our MLB futures portfolio. 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 89.48 units, or 11.9%.
Wild Card Series
We took all the underdogs yesterday, and that still looks like the move. Of those underdogs, we like the Blue Jays and Diamondbacks the most, but we have so much leverage on the Diamondbacks that it doesn’t make sense to add more. We still narrowly prefer the Twins over the Blue Jays in the long run, which is what makes this more valuable.
Pick: Toronto to win +108. Medium confidence.
ALCS
We’re going in double on this one today, and in doing that we’re flipping a few scenarios from unprofitable to profitable. At the moment, our AL pecking order, in order of upside and then downside, goes: Baltimore, Minnesota, Toronto, Houston, Texas, Tampa Bay. For those curious, the NL order is: Miami, Arizona, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Los Angeles. It isn’t as bad a situation as those leading underdogs might imply. It’s a pretty good situation, in fact, judging by that expected return above. We do need some underdogs to win, though, and that starts this week.
Pick: Houston to win +210. Medium confidence. x2
