Yesterday's picks: how the model did (September 24)

Verdexed's graded line for Thursday, September 24, is zero picks, zero correct, zero incorrect. Two leagues played, a twelve-game Major League Baseball board on the final Thursday of the regular season and the NFL's Week 3 opener at Lambeau Field, and neither produced a scored prediction here, because the model's per-game probabilities were not published. By this column's running count that is the forty-ninth consecutive slate opening with the same number. Thursday's picks columns claimed no edge and stated no side in either sport, so nothing that happened belongs on the model's record.

The scorecard

Picks made: zero. Correct: zero. Incorrect: zero. Accuracy on the day is undefined, because the denominator is zero, and that holds for both leagues.

No accuracy percentage and no Brier score is cited here. A public search returns the Verdexed methodology page, which describes scoring every logged prediction on win accuracy and on Brier score, where lower is better. It does not return the ledger underneath it, and the site is blocked from this publishing environment. A description of a process is not a number. The 65 percent and 70 percent confidence tiers went unpopulated for a forty-ninth straight day, so whether the high-confidence chalk held cannot be answered.

The hand-kept ledger of stated sides holds at 13-10 across 23 decisions, unchanged.

What the two columns did commit to was six market prices, five in baseball and one in football. That borrowed scoreboard went 4-2. The quoted baseball favorites went 4-1: Chicago near minus 130, Texas near minus 108, Arizona near minus 158, and the Cubs near minus 198 all won, while Boston near minus 134 lost. The single football number lost by three scores.

Best call / worst miss

Nothing was picked, so there is no sharpest call and no worst miss belonging to the model. What follows grades the columns' own reads.

**The worst read: Green Bay.** The NFL column built its page around the market having the Packers between 6.5 and 7 points at home, and framed Michael Penix Jr.'s first start since tearing an ACL last November as the largest unpriced risk on Atlanta's side. It was the opposite. Result at Lambeau Field: **Falcons 35, Packers 14**. Bijan Robinson ran for 194 yards and two touchdowns, Atlanta outrushed Green Bay 242 yards to 17, and Penix finished 18 of 25 for 256 yards with a touchdown and an interception. Green Bay lost a home opener for the first time since 2012. A road underdog winning outright by 21 means the number was wrong by a wide margin, and the column pointed at the wrong team.

**The best read: Arizona at Colorado.** The column called the pitching gap the widest on the board and named the ballpark as the reason to be careful with it. Both halves landed. Result at Coors Field: **Diamondbacks 12, Rockies 8**, Gabriel Moreno homering in a six-run first and Arizona collecting a season-high 18 hits. The side won and the caveat was earned, since 20 combined runs is not a comfortable way to cash a minus 158.

**The baseball miss: Boston.** The quoted home favorite lost the one game with a clinch attached. Result at Fenway Park: **Guardians 1, Red Sox 0**, on Angel Martinez's second-inning home run, with Joey Cantillo throwing five shutout innings of one-hit ball behind opener Daniel Espino. Cleveland, at 83-76, clinched a third straight postseason berth against Boston at 85-74. The column had refused to name Cleveland's starter because two previews disagreed, listing Cantillo in one and Espino in the other. Both pitched.

**A correction to this desk's own page.** The baseball column placed Cubs at Marlins at loanDepot Park. The game was at Wrigley Field. Result: **Cubs 2, Marlins 1**, Nico Hoerner driving in the go-ahead run behind seven innings from Matthew Boyd, as projected, and Chicago at 88-71 clinched a wild card. Elsewhere, **White Sox 9, Royals 1** sent Chicago to the postseason for the first time since 2021, the first club to follow back-to-back 100-loss seasons with a berth. **Rangers 3, Mets 1**, and **Astros 7, Athletics 5**, so the American League West margin did not move. Standings figures surfaced inconsistently across sources, so no divisional records are asserted here.

What it means

Four of six quoted prices winning is not a result, because none of them were the model's. The result is the zero, and it is the forty-ninth of its kind. Grading Thursday as a good day because the previewed games resolved into clean, confirmable finals would be the exact dishonesty this column exists to avoid.

The durable read has not moved. The hand-kept 13-10 across 23 stated sides remains the only graded figure here, and at that sample the distance between 13-10 and 10-13 is a few coin flips, which is a reason to hold it loosely. Forty-nine consecutive slates without a graded pick is a publishing failure rather than a modeling result. Baseball's regular season has three days left, so the window to grade a 2026 MLB board in public is nearly shut, and football now runs every week, which removes the calendar as an excuse. Thursday's NHL games were preseason and the NBA is out of season, so neither is graded here.

Responsible play

**This is a record of past model output, not betting advice.** Verdexed grades its model in public for transparency and entertainment. Past results do not predict future outcomes, nothing here is a recommendation to place a wager, and no pick is ever a guarantee, even a strong model loses regularly.

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