Editor’s Note: For almost three years now, Joe has been publishing picks here and back at All Things NIT, our former site. There have been moments of elation (the Nationals winning the 2019 World Series, the first two months of the 2019-20 college basketball season). There have been moments of frustration (the Dodgers’ 2020 NLCS comeback, the second two months of the 2019-20 college basketball season). Overall, the results have been neutral, with an average return on investment, per pick, of 0.1% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 1,598 published picks, not including pending futures. 0.1% isn’t much, but it’s positive, and that’s not nothing.
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. FanGraphs is heavily used in making MLB picks.
One future today, for which the odds come from Bovada due to the absence of a current/accurate Vegas consensus. First, though:
St. Louis @ Los Angeles
The Dodgers have the better starting pitcher tonight, and more importantly for this bet, the Dodgers have the better bullpen, which should point to a world in which if this game is high-scoring, meaning teams have to turn to a number of pitchers, the Dodgers should gain an additional advantage. The correlation doesn’t have to be strong for these odds to make sense, but it does have to exist, so that’s the question we’re trying to answer. If we take the 68% probability that the Dodgers win—somewhere between what FanGraphs’s ZiPs and Depth Charts give us—and then say that if the Dodgers win, there’s a 52% chance eight or more runs are scored, this becomes positive-value. Given eight or more runs appear, based on the line, to be roughly 47% or 48% likely in the market’s eyes, it’s a substantial boost to get to 52%. In our eyes, though, the eight or more runs are looking more like 50% likely, making that gap a little smaller. Again, the bet depends on what you think about the correlation. In this case, we buy it.
Pick: Parlay – Los Angeles to win; Over 7.5 (+183). Low confidence.
NLCS
Honestly, these odds might not shorten too dramatically with a Dodgers loss tonight, given the market believes in San Francisco. But they’re positive-value right now, and getting a Milwaukee pennant to be a profitable route for us again regardless of what happens in the American League helps our profit probability. We aren’t all the way there yet—a Rays/Brewers World Series would leave us in the red as things stand—but this gets us closer.
Pick: Milwaukee to win +350. Low confidence.
