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 7,740 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.
Active markets today: MLB moneylines and MLB futures. This week’s NFL and college football futures are on their way tomorrow.
Single-day MLB bets: Last year, we finished the season up about 8%, betting strictly moneylines. We’re 159–134–3 so far this year, down 4.88 units. Over the last four weeks, we’ve been trying a different collection of approaches. So far, that effort is 47–32, up 7.92 units. We’re still open to changing those approaches, but for now, we’re picking Heat Index’s top two choices every day, with Heat Index being our pet metric measuring how hot and cold teams are. Together, Heat Index’s top two choices are 31–8 in our sample, up 14.87 units. They’ve been what’s working. The rest of our attempted approaches haven’t worked on the aggregate.
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.
Colorado @ Atlanta
Heat Index’s first choice is, again, the Braves, the second-hottest team in baseball playing the third-coldest. The upside is low, but if the value’s good, a win is a win.
Pick: Atlanta to win –273. Low confidence. (Blalock and Morton must start.)
Boston @ New York (NL)
For the second choice, the Mets’ recent surge brings them into the mix. The Red Sox’ pitching has stabilized a little, but it still hasn’t been good, the bats have slumped, and the Mets are playing strong baseball, hanging right behind Atlanta in the Wild Card race.
Pick: New York (NL) to win –110. Low confidence. (Houck and Megill must start.)
World Series
The market’s pretty tight right now, but it is probably underweighting the Padres, especially with Yu Darvish returning tonight. (It’s very unlikely that hurts them.) That’s the best value we’re seeing. The Astros are valuable, but this play comes more in order to get them back to being a profitable World Series scenario for our portfolio.
Pick: Houston to win +850. Medium confidence.
Pick: San Diego to win +1400. Medium confidence.
