Almost Perfect

“I don't care what you have to do – if it means walking everywhere and not eating anything that wasn't purchased with a coupon, find a way to get your hands on $100,000. After that, you can ease off the gas a little bit.” - Charlie Munger

With teams having completed somewhere between 12 and 18 games out of 162, the 2021 MLB season is still very much in its infancy but the futility of blindly backing Home teams in the early stages of a season continues to be evident.

With data going back 17 seasons, a strategy of backing all Home teams during the first 30 games of a season has an ROI of -3.3% over 7,644 games, and while 'hot favourites' are profitable (especially in National League matches), it's Away teams offer more value.

Backing big underdogs in baseball isn't a good idea, but backing Small Dogs on the road in the first 30 games of a season has an ROI of 4.4% in National League games. The 2020 season saw this strategy take a loss, but we can blame the now abandoned Designated Hitter rule change for that. This season, the strategy currently has an ROI of 9.9% on the Money Line with three probable selections tonight. 

I mentioned a few days ago that the San Diego Padres, in their 52 year history, were the only team in MLB never to throw a no-hitter, but that fun fact did not age well as locally born Joe Musgrove threw one on April 9th. He was just a hit batter away from the even rarer perfect game.

The NBA Overs System for this season now has an ROI of 18.8% after 83 selections with April so far having a 10-6 record. 

The Basic NHL System has now passed 200 selections for this season and continues to pay dividends, currently up 48.43 points with an ROI of 17.6%. Here are the results for this system for the last 10 seasons:

$TSLA

In the financial markets, April was a good month until this week, when gains have been trimmed a little, but with just eight trading days to go, I'm hopeful for a sixth consecutive positive month, but of course anything can happen. My Bitcoin investment has lost 6.76% in its early days, but Tesla's current gain means I can sleep easy at night.

In a sure sign that I have too much time on my hands, I decided to rewrite the history of English football and strip the "Big" 6 of their trophies, awarding them to the highest placed non-Big 6 club. The good news is that Crystal Palace have now won the league, a couple of FA Cups, and doubled their tally of Full Members' Cup wins.

Leading trophy winners in English domestic competitions are now: