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 5,070 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +3.1% across 1,617 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.
The MLB futures are back today, and we’ve got a lot of them. The trade deadline did not go well for us, and this is part of the design—we blindly trust the FanGraphs model, and the FanGraphs model only uses present rosters—but with the Astros suddenly a lot better thanks to the Verlander trade, and with the Astros a major liability for us, and with the Astros offering positive value for just about the first time all year, we decided to go on a little spree. This won’t affect how many units we spend over the course of the regular season, and if it does, that’s why we have the hedging units set aside.
Now, the context on each market.
Single-game MLB bets: On the season, we’re 67–50–4, we’re up 13.56 units, we’re up 11% (the average line on our winners has been –105). April was great, May was bad, June was good, July was great. We opened July with a win last night.
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 83.85 units, or 8.1%.
Cincinnati @ Chicago (NL)
The Yankees and the Cubs pass our parameters today, which makes this a binary choice. Favoring the Yankees is that we love betting against Shane McClanahan, believing him to be overvalued by markets when, if anything, his objective projections may be a little optimistic right now (he’s battled back issues and his season FIP and xERA are both worse than his projected FIP). Favoring the Cubs is the series dynamics angle—I would imagine the Yankees are getting a perception boost because they’re playing to avoid a sweep, but once August hits, my anecdotal impression is that series get wackier, and with the Rays both chasing the Orioles and enjoying an off day tomorrow, I don’t think there’s any reason to expect them to take their foot off the gas.
We do have some Drew Smyly concerns, especially as he returns to starting after the Cubs used an opener for his last two outings, but he’s sneakily been pretty good since the All-Star Break, striking out 18 and only walking three over 14 innings of work. His ERA’s an ugly 6.43 over those three outings, but his FIP’s only 4.56, with both a .351 BABIP and a 21.4% HR/FB rate from the stretch unlikely to be sustained. Add in that Brandon Williamson, a 2023 Cincinnati Red through and through, has an ERA that’s dramatically overperformed his xERA and FIP. Regression, please continue to work your magic.
In the end, to be transparent, we’re taking the Cubs because we’re taking the Yankees in a different test we’re running behind the scenes, so taking the Cubs gives us the personal option to take both. It’s arbitrary, but sometimes arbitrary is the only option.
Pick: Chicago (NL) to win –145. Low confidence. (Williamson and Smyly must start.)
ALCS
Nine plays here, with six of them on Houston. I don’t know if FanGraphs is high on Verlander, if FanGraphs has a glitch in the model today, or if the markets are late to understanding how much that trade improves this roster, but with so much downside on the Astros, we’re going to assume the last of those three is the driver here. Even if the first is the case, we trust that FanGraphs read.
Across the way, there’s postseason value on the Rays for the first time in a long time as well, and we’re not as afraid of it vanishing tomorrow as we are of the Astros value going away, but we’re a little wary, so we’ll throw three of the nine picks (or six of the eighteen units) on Tampa Bay.
Pick: Houston to win +350. Medium confidence. x6
Pick: Tampa Bay to win +350. Medium confidence. x3
AL West
More Astros here, with these six units bringing them close to the Rangers as an outcome for us. The Rangers upside isn’t meaningful enough for us to make a special effort to preserve it, especially with the Reds and Guardians each threatening disaster for us in other divisions.
Pick: Houston to win –125. Medium confidence. x3
World Series
What’s going on here is that we don’t expect the Cubs to be available at 140–to–1 forever, but that in taking them, we push Atlanta and San Diego closer to being unprofitable outcomes. Given each presents positive value today and we’re already blowing past our two–future–a–day cadence, there’s no reason for us to not shore up those edges.
Pick: Atlanta to win +325. Medium confidence.
Pick: San Diego to win +2800. Medium confidence.
Pick: Chicago (NL) to win +14000. Medium confidence.
