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 –2.0% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 7,759 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.6% across 2,293 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 today: MLB futures; MLB moneylines. We’ll do our football futures for this week tomorrow.
Here’s the history on each and how we approach them:
MLB moneylines: Last year, we finished the season up about 8%. We’re 165–140–4 so far this year, down 7.87 units. About a month ago, we pivoted to a different set of systems. We’re 53–38–1 since the pivot, up 4.93 units. The biggest driver of that success has been Heat Index, our pet metric which gauges the gap between how hot different teams are. Together, various combinations of Heat Index’s first, second, and third picks have gone 38–14–1, generating an 8.11-unit return. In response to a recent plateau, we shortened Heat Index’s sample yesterday to two weeks and reverted to only betting one game a day with it. We’ll keep monitoring its performance.
MLB futures: We have a great history with these, though the last two years we’ve only made small profits. In both 2019 and 2021, I believe we recorded better than a 50% ROI. In 2020, we lost about 25% of our portfolio. We began this season with 750 units in our 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. We place two medium confidence bets most weekdays until sometime later this month when the scenarios become more specific.
Cleveland @ Chicago (AL)
Shifting from a three-week recency sample to two weeks makes Heat Index swing around more quickly. That might be good or might be bad. We’ll find out. For today, it means Cleveland’s the hottest team in baseball by this definition. They’ve got the best wRC+/FIP– combo over the last 14 days. The coldest? The White Sox. This is a good matchup for us if our theory’s correct.
Pick: Cleveland to win –210. Low confidence. (Boyd and Martin must start.)
NLCS
More on the Padres today. They won, the Mets lost, and their odds didn’t change. Still the best value out there in the futures markets we’re seeing.
One thing to track with these guys? FanGraphs has them with a 1-in-20 chance to win the NL West. The gap is five big games in the loss column, but the Pads still play three games in Los Angeles, and they’ve already clinched the tiebreaker. The Dodgers should be safe. But 1-in-20 isn’t nothing.
Pick: San Diego to win +750. Medium confidence.
World Series
The Diamondbacks also won last night, keeping even with the Padres in the loss column and pulling two games ahead of New York. In a key difference, the Padres hold the tiebreaker over Atlanta, while the Diamondbacks don’t. The Diamondbacks don’t hold any of their relevant tiebreakers right now, although the San Diego/Arizona series is tied 5–5 ahead of their final-weekend three-game tilt.
Pick: Arizona to win +2200. Medium confidence.
