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 –2% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 7,914 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +1% across 2,397 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 rely heavily on FanGraphs for all our MLB action. We rely heavily on Nate Silver’s presidential election model for our election futures. For college football bets, we primarily use our own model. For NFL bets, we lean on ESPN’s FPI.
Active markets: MLB futures, college football futures, and NFL futures. Here’s the context:
MLB futures: In four of the five years we’ve done these, we’ve profited, twice by large margins. We began this season with 750 units in our portfolio. We place two medium confidence bets most weekdays throughout the regular season, then pivot to placing a more variable number throughout the playoffs. We’re currently big fans of the Tigers, Padres, Braves, and Mets, and we do not want the Dodgers, Orioles, or Phillies to win it all.
College football futures: Our history here is decent. We’ve generally made small profits, but only small ones, and last year came very close to disaster. This year, we’re doing two separate futures funds: The first is our normal one for team futures. It’s 150 units large, and we’re investing five units per week. The second is a new one to bet the Heisman market. It’s 100 units large, but we bet a variable number of units per week.
NFL futures: Our history’s ok with these. We’re slightly profitable all-time, but we’ve only done them for two years and we only profited in one of the two. Our portfolio is 200 units large. To leave a cushion for hedging and arbitrage purposes, we’re investing roughly six units per week.
You can find both our NFL and college football futures portfolios on this Google Sheet. That should give a better idea of how we look at both.
ALDS: New York (AL) vs. Baltimore or Kansas City
This is not a conditional bet. We’re not betting on the Royals to win the Division Series *if* they make it. We’re betting on the Royals to win the Division Series.
We’re about to go against this a little bit down below, but we really like what a rotation like the Royals’ does for a team’s chances in October. It’s not that it’s dominant. It’s that it’s competent. It’s good enough to give the Royals a decent chance in every game they play. We’re not sure the Royals’ chance of closing out this Wild Card Series is significantly worse than that of the Mets (or maybe even the Padres), despite what the markets imply. This is where the value of that perception gets us the best expected return.
Pick: Kansas City to win +300. Medium confidence.
World Series
The markets don’t seem to like the Phillies much, lengthening their odds since yesterday. Some lengthening was probably fair. The Mets are a better team on paper than the Brewers. But this went too far. The reasoning seems to be that the Phillies aren’t as dominant as they were early in the year, and that Ranger Suárez in particular struggled down the stretch. This isn’t 2004, though. You don’t need as many starting pitchers as you used to. Even if you did, the Phillies have two of the four best in these playoffs, and they’re on a great side of the bracket, still poised to face the Mets or Brewers while the Dodgers and (probably) the Padres beat the crap out of each other.
Our portfolio has been quiet on the Phillies all year. We’re getting the opportunity to catch up a bit now. They’re still not a good outcome for us, but eight units here pulls them up closer to something that could work out.
Pick: Philadelphia to win +500. Medium confidence. x4
Heisman Trophy
With Carson Beck’s performance what it was on Saturday and the increased likelihood both Texas and Alabama get to the SEC Championship with eleven or more wins, we’re leaning more towards the theory that there won’t be a default quarterback winning the Heisman this year. We don’t think Jalen Milroe can’t win it, but his value’s at its low point right now, since Alabama has layups the next two weeks before their trip to Knoxville. If we’re going to buy in on Milroe, we need to wait for the price to drop when the newest shiny object arrives.
So, we’re putting one more unit on Travis Hunter, whose hype has yet to crest, and two units on Ashton Jeanty. If Jeanty can stay healthy (knock on wood), he’ll likely put up numbers not seen in a long, long time. There are some bad teams in the Mountain West. Jeanty will get a premier-ish game against UNLV towards the end of the month, he might get another against San Jose State in November, and he’ll close his regular season against an Oregon State team who could rack up a good number of wins itself. There’s a decent chance the Mountain West Championship is a playoff play-in for the Broncos, while the SEC Championship has a good chance of doing to Milroe or Quinn Ewers what the Pac-12 Championship did to Bo Nix last year.
For the time being, we want to keep Hunter and Jeanty as profitable options for our portfolio. They’re joined on that list right now by Miller Moss (plausible, but not looking good), Drew Allar (still a sleeper, but might sleep the whole way through), Carson Beck (not looking good), Quinn Ewers (not good but better than people think), and Riley Leonard (not happening). We’re not terribly worried yet about Cam Ward or Nico Iamaleava. We’re worried about Milroe, but we’re not freaking out.
Pick: Travis Hunter to win +475. Low confidence.
Pick: Ashton Jeanty to win +900. Low confidence. x2
College Football Playoff
It’s possible the College Football Playoff markets are the least efficient markets in college football right now. Some of the odds we’re seeing are absurd. Our model projects a 218% expected return on BYU, for instance, and we don’t have qualms about our model’s impression there, and we’re still passing it up.
Louisville is not an ACC favorite, and their playoff path did get worse through losing to Notre Dame. But the possibility of these guys winning the ACC or threading the 11–2 needle is high enough that +550 is a great price. Our model might be a little low on Miami, but +550 is too long. (And we’re not sure how low our model really is on Miami after last week’s very Miami performance.)
Similarly, Michigan is not going to be the team they hoped to be. But can they win at Washington, Illinois, and Indiana? Even if they then lose to Oregon at home and Ohio State in Columbus, that would leave them 9–3 with losses to only national championship contenders and probably a ranked win or two. It’s not likely, but +750?
Finally, people are sleeping on JMU. They’re clearly the best team in the Sun Belt right now, and while we do fear our model is overestimating the CFP committee’s Sun Belt awareness, there’s a very good chance UNLV and Boise State both end up with two more losses than the Dukes.
Pick: Louisville to make playoff +550. Low confidence.
Pick: Michigan to make playoff +750. Low confidence.
Pick: James Madison to make playoff +1200. Low confidence.
Sun Belt
We don’t love having two units on JMU to make the playoff, because of that concern about the committee undervaluing the Sun Belt. Thankfully, some markets still think Texas State is better than JMU, and we just haven’t seen evidence to support that theory. We’ll put two units down here. We’re hesitant to pick conference futures because our model doesn’t have the tiebreakers programmed in yet, and we’re not completely sold on JMU dominance (we think they’re good, but we aren’t sure they’re great). We’re worried about this weekend and next Thursday and a few other games as the year goes on. But we think they’re clearly the best team in the Sun Belt, and this makes this a good price, and if we’re right about it we should be able to cover any accidental Dukes overinvestment in the CFP market.
Pick: James Madison to win +350. Low confidence. x2
NFC East
This is less about the Commanders than the rest of their division. We think the Eagles and/or Cowboys might fall apart. The Eagles did it last year and have shown cracks so far. The Cowboys are showing cracks as well. If we whiff on this, we whiff, but we think it’s a good price.
Pick: Washington to win +290. Low confidence.
NFC
Going off of that, we like this price as well, and we’re happy to add another longshot to our conference futures mix. For the postseason futures, what we’re generally doing is allowing ourselves one bet apiece on longshots and then trying to rally around some teams we’re fairly confident will at least make it to the playoffs. One of those is the Packers. We’re not the highest on Jordan Love, but we think Matt LaFleur’s gameplans are up there with anybody’s.
Pick: Green Bay to win +1200. Low confidence.
Pick: Washington to win +2500. Low confidence.
AFC
The Bills are another team we expect to be in the mix. We don’t buy the Jets. We think the Bills win the East and that we can figure it out from there.
Pick: Buffalo to win +450. Low confidence.
Super Bowl
Additionally: The Lions. We think their division odds are probably too short, but even if they have to settle for a wildcard, the wildcard might not be a bad spot to occupy, so long as the Niners don’t dig too deep a hole before figuring it out. Playing the NFC South champ, the NFC East champ, the Vikings, or the Packers doesn’t sound terrible for Detroit.
Pick: Buffalo to win +1000. Low confidence.
Pick: Detroit to win +1100. Low confidence.
