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 -5% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 3,397 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of 0.3% across 762 completed high and medium-confidence picks (low confidence picks, these days, are in experimental markets for us). Our ETA to get the overall number back profitable is currently November 5th, the date of a potential World Series Game 7.
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 have a gambling problem, get help.
Lines for these come from the Vegas consensus or the closest approximation available at the time picks are written, unless otherwise noted. For futures bets (in both sports and politics) and motorsports bets, odds are taken from the better option between Bovada and BetOnline as our best approximation of the Vegas consensus, which isn’t currently/accurately available online. FanGraphs is heavily used in making MLB picks. FiveThirtyEight’s SPI is heavily used in making soccer picks.
Just MLB futures today. For unit context, we started the portfolio with 520 units available to bet and 520 more in reserve, should we need them for hedging down the line. We have yet to tap into the hedging units.
ALCS
The same as what we’ve been doing for a couple weeks on the Rays—they’re so, so valuable—plus a little fresh value on the Twins, which flips them to a profitable route for us.
With this recent Rays binge, our mean and median outcomes have moved in opposite directions, but even with that, our median outcome is still a comfortable profit, and the great thing about the mean being higher is that it gives us leverage from which to hedge. That’s the advantage of having upside be the concentrated direction—it should be possible to pull the median up when the time comes.
Pick: Tampa Bay to win +2000. Medium confidence.
Pick: Minnesota to win +2800. Medium confidence.
