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 –0.8% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 5,039 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 markets today.
Single-game MLB bets: On the season, we’re 52–37–1, we’re up 8.84 units, we’re up 10% (the average line on our winners has been –113). April was great, May was bad, June has been good.
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 127.08 units, or 12.2%.
Cincinnati @ Baltimore
We think the Reds are one of the most overvalued teams in baseball right now, and a lot of that comes back to pitching. The rotation was already suspect, but with Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo sidelined, its best starter on paper—Andrew Abbott—is the second-worst best–starter of any team in the league (again, this is on paper, going by FanGraphs’s Depth Charts projected FIP). Luke Weaver, tonight’s starter, is especially questionable. We like the Orioles to take the series tonight, with no rain delays this time.
Pick: Baltimore to win –161. Low confidence. (Weaver and Gibson must start.)
AL West
These are still long odds, but with last night’s win the Angels are inching close to 50% in FanGraphs playoff probability, and a hearty chunk of that is the chance they win the division. The Astros are struggling, the Rangers are good but flawed, the Angels still have Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout, with the first of those two on pace for a better season than last year’s by two full wins of WAR. There might finally be some magic in Disneyland.
Pick: Anaheim to win +850. Medium confidence.
World Series
No change here, the Marlins are still the most valuable option on the board. They’re far from safe to make the playoffs, but between them and our Giants and our Diamondbacks, we should get two extremely high-upside options into the Wild Card Series somewhere.
Pick: Miami to win +5500. Medium confidence.
