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 –0.7% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 5,200 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +3.1% across 1,643 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.
One MLB moneyline, some MLB futures, and our college football futures for the week. Here’s the context on each market.
Single-game MLB bets: On the season, we’re 98–73–5, we’re up 16.93 units, we’re up 10% (the average line on our winners has been –109). Two more wins to hit 100 on the regular season.
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. 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 110.76 units, or 14.8%.
College football futures: We started the season with 300 units in our college football futures portfolio, with the intent being to spend 200 of those over the season’s fifteen weeks and keep 100 in reserve for hedging and arbitrage opportunities. As with the MLB futures, this is circular, but if we use Movelor probabilities and include today’s plays, our mean expected return on the 300 units (based on what we’ve bet so far) is 47.83 units, or 15.9%.
Washington @ Baltimore
We’re not going to get too fancy today. The Orioles are a big favorite, and they should be a little bigger favorite, with Kyle Bradish excellent over the season. We like Baltimore to take a step closer to clinching the division tonight.
Pick: Baltimore to win –238. Low confidence. (Gray and Bradish must start.)
AL West
We’re doing the thing we did yesterday, leveraging our Mariners AL West future to bet on the likeliest scenario: That the Rangers hold onto the division and the Astros make the playoffs. It’s a small thing, but it’s positive-value, and it moves the likeliest scenario a few more units in our favor. Four units here.
Pick: Texas to win –550. Medium confidence. x2
MLB Playoffs
This is the second part of the process. Eight units on it.
Pick: Houston to make playoffs –255. Medium confidence. x4
ALCS
This is more portfolio management, taking advantage of narrowly positive value on the Astros to flip them back to a profitable ALCS scenario. We’re most likely going to have profitable scenarios now with five of the six American League playoff teams in the pennant market, making it ten of twelve overall. That’s a good position to be in heading into the decisive weeks.
Pick: Houston to win +450. Medium confidence.
CFP National Championship
If someone had told you in 2012 that Nick Saban’s Alabama had lost an early-season marquee game but would still go on to win a national championship, you wouldn’t be surprised. This would be somewhat normal. I’m not sure it would be that abnormal this year, either. While the Tide aren’t what we’re used to them being, they get both Tennessee and LSU at home, and if they can pull away from Mississippi like they just did, they should be fine against both those teams. What we’re getting here, then, is 30-to-1 odds on a team that will be in the SEC Championship with an 11–1 record as long as they take care of business. We don’t know if they will do that, but we like our chances.
Elsewhere: Movelor has Penn State as the best team in the country, better than both Ohio State and Georgia by a full three points. This feels aggressive, but it’s mostly giving teams credit for how they’ve played, and it’s hard to argue with that. It’s hard to believe Penn State will win it all, but it’s easy to see how they could give us great leverage, and of those three most talented teams—Ohio State, Alabama, Georgia—it’s hard to find one who doesn’t come accompanied by big doubts.
Pick: Penn State to win +1800. Low confidence.
Pick: Alabama to win +3000. Low confidence.
Big Ten
We’re putting more on Penn State here. They look great. They look every bit as good as Ohio State and Michigan, if not better. Beyond 2-to-1 odds, then, they make a lot of sense.
We’re also adding Wisconsin, who’s flashing narrowly positive value and helps us out this way in the event our Iowa Big Ten West future flops.
Pick: Penn State to win +350. Low confidence. x4
Pick: Wisconsin to win +1200. Low confidence.
Pac-12
Our Oregon State futures took a big hit on Saturday, so part of this is reacting to that. We would like to have one team in the Pac-12 Championship, and it’s looking like a four-team race between Washington, Oregon, USC, and Utah for those two spots. We already have some good action on Utah. This gives us two of the four horses.
Pick: Washington to win +300. Low confidence. x4
ACC
Movelor’s generally been lower on UNC than the narrative these last two years, which makes us notice when it says that this offers positive value. We’re liking our Syracuse and Louisville futures a lot, and this adds to the collection. What we’re looking for is a foil to FSU. If we have big enough upside on FSU’s opponent, we’ll either have great value in the ACC Championship or a good path to locking ourselves into profit via a hedge.
Pick: North Carolina to win +900. Low confidence. x2
