We bet three favorites yesterday. The biggest one won. In one of the games, we said, Pitcher A is great and Pitcher B probably isn’t that good, then watched Pitcher B throw six perfect innings while Pitcher A’s team eventually allowed 17 runs.
Back to the drawing board.
We’ve got MLB futures today even though they’re normally off for the weekend. We missed a day this week.
Cincinnati at St. Louis
The narrative really whipsaws on these Cardinals, who just swept the White Sox and are suddenly back in the markets’ good graces. We’re not saying they should be an underdog, but the Reds’ bullpen is relatively fresh and for as good as Sonny Gray is, the long layoff’s a little concerning after a weird last start. We think there’s value on the Reds here.
(Unit context: If you don’t read these every day, we switched to the Kelly criterion, and our confidence in these picks is very low right now, which makes the expected win probability we plug in a lot lower than we wish it was. This could change fast. Hopefully it does.)
Pick: Cincinnati to win +172. 0.61 units to win 1.05. Suter and Gray must start.
Boston at San Francisco
The Red Sox have won ten of twelve. People are excited about them. We think that creates an advantage for us.
Landon Roupp did have a disastrous last start, but he was also pitching against the Dodgers. He’s still having a great year, and there’s none of the “this guy and his manager might be at odds” stuff we see with Gray and Oli Marmol.
Pick: San Francisco to win –112. 1.17 units to win 1.04. Bello and Roupp must start.
Kansas City at San Diego
It’s not that we think Noah Cameron isn’t good, especially with the Royals making a lot out of their starting pitchers the last couple years. It’s that Dylan Cease is probably undervalued right now. Better FIP and xERA than ERA, and he’s coming off a lot of good starts if you account for BABIP, which has really gone against him lately.
Pick: San Diego to win –149. 1.56 units to win 1.05. Cameron and Cease must start.
Houston at Anaheim
It kills us to place this, because the Astros’ bullpen is spent and we love what José Soriano’s doing for the Angels. But Brandon Walter’s been unexpectedly very good, and we’re getting the Astros as an underdog against the Angels. Hard to pass that up.
Pick: Houston to win +107. 0.98 units to win 1.05. Walter and Soriano must start.
Cleveland at Sacramento
Are we walking into a trap? The A’s have won six of eight, and while we’re not using any “back” terminology, their streakiness seems to have led the market to declare them either hot or cold. We’re also skeptical of how much the market seems to wait Mason Miller’s availability, even as big bullpen availability guys. Come to think of it, maybe that’s part of why our early-season approach fell off a cliff the last year and a half after performing so well in 2023. Maybe markets started making too much of bullpens, which are important but possibly more in a sense of managerial psychology than in terms of the actual available arms. Given the tiny samples inherent to the job, it’s hard to know with confidence if a relief pitcher is all that good.
Pick: Sacramento to win +115. 0.91 units to win 1.05. Ortiz and Spence must start.
ALCS
The Astros have seized favorite status in the AL West, and they’re looking like an AL contender at large as well. We can get positive value on them here, and we should, since we don’t have much so far.
Pick: Houston to win +600. 2.00 units to win 12.00.
NLCS
And in the NL, we’re putting more on the Phils. They’re good enough that they should stay in the picture. We probably aren’t going to get value on the Dodgers, so we need some big positions on other teams in the picture.
Pick: Philadelphia to win +600. 2.00 units to win 12.00.
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I am only roughly 90% confident in these numbers. At some point we’ll get that Google Sheet up which tracks all our bets this year.
2025–26: –402.79 units (started with 1,000-unit bankroll)
2025–26: –7% average ROI (weighted by unit; sample size: 400 single-game markets plus two completed futures portfolios and one partly completed futures portfolio)
Pre-2025: 0% average ROI (worse when limited to only sports)
Units taken from best odds we can find at major sportsbooks available to most Americans.
These bets are not investment advice. If you’re worried you or someone you know might have a gambling addiction, call 1-800-GAMBLER for free, confidential help.
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