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 an even 0% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 5,226 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +3.6% across 1,668 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. Movelor is heavily used in making college football picks, with some references to ESPN’s FPI and SP+. FPI is heavily used in making NFL picks, especially futures.
One MLB moneyline, some MLB futures. We’ll have this week’s NFL futures tomorrow this week instead of today. Here’s the context on each market.
Single-game MLB bets: On the season, we’re 99–73–5, we’re up 17.35 units, we’re up 10% (the average line on our winners has been –110). Today, we go for number 100.
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 94.88 units, or 12.7%.
Houston @ Seattle
We’re trying to get a sense of whether or not to continue these moneyline bets into the playoffs, and this—effectively a playoff game—is going to be an interesting test. That’s not why we’re placing it, but it’s going to be interesting.
Bryce Miller is showing signs of tiring, but the Mariners’ bullpen should only have Matt Brash unavailable, whereas Framber Valdez—as good as he is—is if anything a little worse than FanGraphs’s projections right now, a set of projections which flash positive value here on Seattle. There is enough working in Seattle’s favor right now for us to take a shot on them to get the win here, a win that could potentially keep more paths to the AL West title alive than just the one where they sweep the Rangers over the season’s final four games.
Pick: Seattle to win +107. Low confidence. (Valdez and Miller must start.)
ALCS
There’s great value on the Blue Jays today, with their loss last night and the Mariners’ win seemingly making markets a little more nervous than they need to be about Toronto getting into the playoffs. We’ll take more upside on these guys in this market.
Pick: Toronto to win +800. Medium confidence.
World Series
The Diamondbacks are in a great place to make the playoffs, still leading by one in the loss column and holding the tiebreaker over the Cubs. They also should be formidable in the Wild Card Series, with Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly a solid 1–2 punch. This is mispriced, and nearly four months after our last Diamondbacks future, we’re happy to put more on them, raising our upside on Arizona in the World Series market to 512 units.
Pick: Arizona to win +5000. Medium confidence.
MLB Playoffs (Hedge)
We made a mistake with our math yesterday and went too aggressively after the Rangers/Astros leverage. We’re backpedaling here. We’re losing a little on it (about four units, most likely, or one day’s worth of futures), we’re sorry, but this gets us to where our worst case scenario for all regular season futures is profitable again overall. Always check your work. Eight units on this.
Pick: Seattle to make playoffs –115. Medium confidence. x4
