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 7,925 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +1% across 2,399 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 rely heavily on Nate Silver’s presidential election model for our election futures. For college football bets, we primarily use our own model. For NFL bets, we lean on ESPN’s FPI.
Active markets are MLB futures, NFL futures, college football futures, and single-game college football.
The context on each market:
MLB futures – In four of the five years we’ve done these, we’ve profited, twice by large margins. We began this season with 750 units in our portfolio. We placed two medium confidence bets most weekdays throughout the regular season, as usual, then pivoted to placing a more variable number throughout the playoffs, as usual. We’re currently big fans of the Tigers, Padres, and Mets, and we do not want the Dodgers to win it all.
College football futures – Our history here is decent. We’ve generally made small profits, but only small ones, and last year came very close to disaster. This year, we’re doing two separate futures funds: The first is our normal one for team futures. It’s 150 units large, and we’re investing five units per week. The second is a new one to bet the Heisman market. It’s 100 units large, but we bet a variable number of units per week.
Single-game college football bets – Our history here is mediocre, and we’re off to a really bad start this season, with a 13–19 record on the young year. We’re down 7.28 units heading into this week.
NFL futures – Our history’s ok with these. We’re slightly profitable all-time, but we’ve only done them for two years and we only profited in one of the two. Our portfolio is 200 units large. To leave a cushion for hedging and arbitrage purposes, we’re investing roughly six units per week.
You can find both our NFL and college football futures portfolios on this Google Sheet. That should give a better idea of how we look at both.
Division Series: Los Angeles vs. San Diego
We’re still seeing value on the Dodgers here, and with so little else on the Dodgers in our portfolio, we’re going to take it. The Padres are still our top World Series choice and the team with the second-highest total upside for us. Betting this now while the value’s positive can help save us from having to think about a hedge.
A consequence of this is that if the Dodgers lose the Division Series, about a 50/50 likelihood, we now lose 20 units, having bet ten yesterday and now ten more today. This means all the numbers in this upcoming table besides that of the Padres will drop by 20 on top of the 36.21-unit deficit we’re already running on the year (from division title losses, minus some small Wild Card Series winnings). In other words: We’d be down 56.21 units heading into the LCS’s, plus and minus wherever our other LDS bets land. That would be a big deficit, but it’s worth it for us. The current hypothetical Dodger deficit is much bigger.
Here’s how many units we stand to gain and lose from each remaining team going all the way. This only considers series in which the given team can play. The Tigers number does not consider the Dodgers/Padres NLDS.
| Team | Remaining Upside/Downside |
| Tigers | 1110 |
| Padres | 601 |
| Mets | 258 |
| Royals | 34 |
| Guardians | 26 |
| Yankees | -32 |
| Phillies | -67 |
| Dodgers | -297 |
Pick: Los Angeles to win +107. Medium confidence. x5
FIU @ Liberty
Movelor and SP+ both really like Liberty at this price. FPI really likes FIU.
Our question each week right now is whether we should trust or distrust Movelor. This is often a good time of year for the system, but its bad week last week has us uncertain. We’re going to try trusting it tonight and tomorrow and try to get a read on the rest of the week from there. This might be dumb, but our guess tonight is that FPI is dealing with a small Liberty sample and that markets are too worried about Liberty’s layoff affecting this outcome. We think they come out sharp enough to cover the number.
Pick: Liberty –16 (–112). Low confidence.
Heisman Trophy
Travis Hunter’s price is getting more and more expensive as the hype catches up to him. Unless a quarterback breaks out, though, he should probably be the favorite right now, and I’m not sure a quarterback’s going to break out. We were going to jump on Dillon Gabriel ahead of the Ohio State game, but those red zone picks last week were a red flag. The issue with Gabriel’s candidacy is the same as that of a lot of quarterbacks—his team needs to perform well for him to have a chance. Hunter’s candidacy is more about Hunter. We know he’s the best player in college football. With Oregon likeliest to go 11–2, Quinn Ewers banged up, and the other QB’s all so flawed, we expect the voters to come around to the truth that Hunter is an historic, transcendent college football player. It doesn’t matter for him if Colorado only goes 6–6.
What about Ashton Jeanty?
He’ll put up big numbers, but we’ve seen a lot of great running backs and great Group of Five players, and it’s rare that they win the award. We see his price cresting soon. Even if it doesn’t, we grabbed him with two units at 9-to-1 last week, so he’s in a fine place for us.
Pick: Travis Hunter to win +300. Low confidence.
College Football Playoff
We’re taking five different teams to make the playoff today, still holding back on conference title futures for the most part until we feel better about where we’ve got the tiebreakers in our model. For this week’s five, we’re adding another unit each on Clemson and K-State, then taking the three teams we haven’t bet on yet with higher expected value than those two.
We still believe Clemson is better than Miami, and we trust Clemson more to maintain their current level of play. We still believe K-State’s the best team in the Big 12, and while the one loss they’ve already taken does hurt, and while we’re concerned about them going back to altitude and pressure this weekend, this is a good price.
For the other three, it’s a numbers game. Someone has to win the ACC, and Pitt’s a decent sleeper, with an undefeated start and a manageable-ish schedule offering at-large potential (at least at 18-to-1). Tulane and Army benefit from all the attention Boise State’s getting, but Army also benefits from the possibility of two Group of Five schools making the playoff field. Army’s poised to get to 6–0 this weekend, and they should be favored in each of the three games after that as well. That leaves Notre Dame, UTSA, and the AAC Championship should they reach it. If they upset Notre Dame, they might not need to be ranked higher than Boise State. This is fringe stuff, but 25-to-1 is a fringe price.
Our portfolio is heavy on longshots, which is part of why we want to get more into conference futures soon. But the upside remains really high, which is why we bet so many teams like Pitt and Army. We’ll whiff on plenty, but we’ve gotten a lot of teams at good prices. Do that often enough and the profits will come.
Pick: Clemson to make playoff –110. Low confidence.
Pick: Kansas State to make playoff +250. Low confidence.
Pick: Tulane to make playoff +1000. Low confidence.
Pick: Pitt to make playoff +1800. Low confidence.
Pick: Army to make playoff +2500. Low confidence.
Super Bowl
The Chiefs are flashing positive value right now in postseason markets, and we’ve held off long enough on them. They’re still a team who needs to be in our portfolio at some point, and while we don’t really expect the price to get much more expensive than this, we still think we need to hop on now. We’re putting two units on them here, making them a profitable Super Bowl scenario for us, at least for the moment.
Pick: Kansas City to win +500. Low confidence. x2
AFC
We’re seeing that same value on Kansas City at the conference level as well, but the price is steep enough that we don’t have a way to make Kansas City a profitable AFC outcome unless we want to bet nothing else this week. Instead, we’ll chip away at the liability. One unit here.
Pick: Kansas City to win +240. Low confidence.
NFC
In the NFC, a lot of power’s concentrated in the NFC North, which is a preseason expectation we got wrong. We thought the division would underwhelm. So far, it hasn’t.
We already have the Vikings at 11-to-1 (and at +625 to win the division), but the value’s great here given what a head start Minnesota has. We’re putting two on the Lions as well, since the value’s positive and we only had Super Bowl futures on Detroit entering today.
Pick: Detroit to win +550. Low confidence. x2
Pick: Minnesota to win +575. Low confidence.
