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 5,076 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.
Both the moneyline and futures today. Here’s the context on each.
Single-game MLB bets: On the season, we’re 72–52–4, we’re up 14.79 units, we’re up 12% (the average line on our winners has been –108). April was great, May was bad, June was good, July was great. August has been off to a good start.
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 80.54 units, or 7.7%.
San Diego @ Seattle
FanGraphs has the Mariners favored here, and that’s with a projected 4.99 FIP for Emerson Hancock, who’s making his major league debut. It’s possible there’s a glitch, but the quiet thing about the Mariners is that Jerry Dipoto has built himself a solid roster, one capable of being a tossup against the Padres at home. I’m not putting too much stock in the recent hot streak, but given it’s happened each of the last two years for Seattle around this time, it doesn’t hurt. The Mariners enter tonight two games out of playoff position. Toronto’s in Cleveland. We might see that gap close to one.
Pick: Seattle to win +132. Low confidence. (Darvish and Hancock must start.)
ALCS
There’s a lot similar in the situations of the Rays and the Astros right now. Each is the best team, on paper, in their division. Each trails in their division by one series or less. Each is chasing a team that continues to surprise, four or five or six days a week.
We think the market is also underestimating each team’s probability of winning their division. The nice thing about betting them in this market instead, though, is that so long as each makes the playoffs (and we’d still prefer the Astros don’t, relative to other options), they help us. Amassing value is the initial goal, but it’s a lot easier to convert that value into eventual profit if the portfolio’s diverse. It’s easier to eventually hedge that way, when the time comes. In short? This is all an exercise in setting ourselves up well for October.
Pick: Tampa Bay to win +350. Medium confidence.
Pick: Houston to win +350. Medium confidence.
