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 –2.0% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 7,738 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.6% across 2,293 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.
Active markets today: MLB moneylines. MLB futures are off today (this leaves us with one planned day off this regular season, which we may or may not use). They’ll return tomorrow, and we’ll have this week’s college football and NFL futures either tomorrow or Thursday.
Single-day MLB bets: Last year, we finished the season up about 8%, betting strictly moneylines. We’re 157–134–3 so far this year, down 5.76 units. Over the last three and a half weeks, we’ve been trying a different collection of approaches. So far, that effort is 45–32, up 7.04 units. We’re still open to changing those approaches, but for now, we’re locking in on picking Heat Index’s top two choices every day, with Heat Index being our pet metric measuring how hot and cold teams are. Together, Heat Index’s top two choices are 29–8 in our sample, up 13.99 units. They’ve been what’s working. The rest of our attempted approaches haven’t worked on the aggregate.
Colorado @ Atlanta
Nothing too exciting here. It’s a small reward, but if the Rockies are as cold as, well, the Rockies, we’ll be more than happy to take the victory. Atlanta’s hotter than average, but the Rockies are really cold.
Pick: Atlanta to win –345. Low confidence. (Freeland and Sale must start.)
Los Angeles @ Anaheim
Similarly, the Angels are colder than the Dodgers are hot, at least by the metrics and sample we use. We don’t consider starting pitchers! This does introduce some Walker Buehler anxiety, but we think it’s a feature, not a bug.
Pick: Los Angeles to win –169. Low confidence. (Buehler and Detmers must start.)
