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 –1% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 7,117 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2% across 2,268 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 use kenpom heavily to make college basketball picks. We use our own college basketball model to evaluate college basketball futures. We rely heavily on FanGraphs for all our MLB action.
Active markets today: College basketball and Major League Baseball, in futures markets on the basketball and on the moneyline in the MLB world. We were a little late for MLB futures today, but we build some off-days into that plan.
College basketball futures: We started these on Friday, February 23rd with 350 units in our portfolio. We had a bad Champ Week (lost about five percent of the portfolio), and we then rallied (making half of that back), and then we were about to be in a great spot heading into this weekend but Duke lost, sending us to a projected eROI, right now, of –15% based on our model’s probabilities.
Single-day MLB bets: Last year, we finished the season up about 8%, betting strictly moneylines. We’re trying the same approach this year. We’re 3–3 so far, down 0.71 units.
NIT
We continue to stare down a large deficit in our college basketball futures portfolio, with a lot of upside on Alabama, a little upside on Purdue, and a lot of downside on Seton Hall in the NIT. Unfortunately, that’s still the direction where we think the value lies in these markets. So, we’re taking a big shot here on Indiana State’s moneyline tomorrow. Our reasoning:
First: By how much would Indiana State be favored on a neutral court? The answer is a long one point. Kenpom has the Sycamores as a one-point favorite tomorrow night, but it has them 56% likely to win, which is at the far end of one point. It’s probably more like 1.3 or 1.4 points in that system. Adding at least some home-crowd advantage for the Sycamores, it’s pretty quick to get to the three points we’re seeing on the spread.
Second: We like Purdue, especially to beat NC State, but to put the money on them necessary to make a dent in our deficit, we’ll need more cash flow. This gives us an opportunity to produce that cash flow with two days of bet-placing to go before Saturday night’s game. It’s a risky way to go about it—we’re talking about a 60/40 shot, roughly—but the utility we gain from hitting on this is very high.
Third: We wouldn’t be surprised if this line moves further towards the Sycamores tomorrow, when more action is happening on it. We aren’t banking on this, but we wouldn’t be surprised. Not every book even has the moneyline up for this guy yet. We could conceivably try to do some needle-threading, adding the Seton Hall spread to our mix tomorrow if it’s gotten much longer than three points. We’ll at least take another look in the morning.
Pick: Indiana State to win tournament –150. Low confidence. x21
Cleveland @ Seattle
There aren’t any games today that both 1) flash positive value using FanGraphs’s win probabilities and 2) aren’t accompanied by red flags. So, we’re prioritizing 2 over 1 and going with a moderate favorite. George Kirby looked great in his first start, and the Mariners’ bullpen is fresh. We like them to get it done in the rubbermatch, even if this is an especially low-confidence bet for us.
Pick: Seattle to win –145. Low confidence. (Allen and Kirby must start.)
