TKB Picks

Wraps SportsGameOdds (odds/schedule/stats) and BALLDONTLIE (injuries) into MCP tools for TKB Picks thread-building.

Status: all major bugs found during testing are now fixed and CONFIRMED via live data

Tools (10)

• tkb_get_schedule - game schedule, date/team/conference filtering
• tkb_get_odds - moneyline/spread/total/player prop
• tkb_get_player_hit_rate - recent-game-log hit-rate, CONFIRMED pulling real recent (not stale) data
• tkb_get_injuries - structured injury status, CONFIRMED team field now populates correctly, plus richer detail (type/side/comments)
• tkb_get_team_split - home/road/opponent-specific record
• tkb_get_team_record - overall record from SGO's standings data
• tkb_get_yes_no_prop - milestone-style bets
• tkb_get_period_odds - period-specific lines
• tkb_debug_raw_event - dumps raw SGO event JSON
• tkb_debug_raw_injuries - dumps raw BALLDONTLIE injuries JSON (the tool that finally solved the team-field bug below)

The BALLDONTLIE team-field bug - finally solved, confirmed via live raw JSON

Took 3 attempts to get right:

1. Assumed player.team.full_name (nested) - wrong field name
2. Assumed team.full_name (sibling) based on BALLDONTLIE's docs example for a different endpoint - wrong location entirely
3. Used the new debug tool to see the ACTUAL raw injuries response - real answer: player.team.display_name (nested location was right the whole time, just the wrong field name - display_name not full_name)

Bonus finding: the raw response also includes much richer injury data than originally captured - type (e.g. "Lower Body"), detail (e.g. "Strain"), side (e.g. "Left"), and both short_comment/long_comment with real dated, sourced context. All of this is now captured in NormalizedInjury instead of being discarded.

Confirmed via live test: injuries tool now returns real team names correctly.

Hit-rate date-bounding fix - confirmed via live test

Previously (before this round's fix) returned September 2024 games when asked for "recent" games in August 2026. Root cause: unbounded finalized: true queries with no date range, combined with the API's cursor pagination not being guaranteed chronological order.

Confirmed via live test: Michael Harris II's hit-rate check now returns real, correctly-dated games from July 27 - August 6, 2026, with correct opponents matching the real schedule (Marlins, Nationals, Mets).

Infrastructure note: Render instance upgraded

The Free tier (512MB RAM) was hitting real OOM crashes ("Ran out of memory... over 512MB") under normal tool usage - not a code bug exactly, more that this API's payloads (a single MLB event can carry 1000+ odds markets) are memory-heavier than Free tier comfortably supports. Upgraded to Render's Standard tier (2GB RAM, $25/mo) to resolve this. If OOM issues ever recur even on Standard, the next step would be code-level memory optimization (trimming unused fields before holding results in memory) rather than a further instance upgrade.

Previously fixed (all still in effect, confirmed via live testing across multiple rounds)

• Debug tool crash (oversized payload) - capped
• Yes/No prop crash - same fix
• tkb_get_odds/tkb_get_schedule teamName search pulling entire history - both bounded
• startTimeISO "unknown" - fixed (status.startsAt)
• tkb_get_odds moneyline/spread broken without explicit side - fixed
• No lineups field on SGO events - confirmed, starting pitcher info stays a web-search task

Still genuinely unverified (lower priority, not blocking normal use)

• Player teamID update speed after a real trade - can only be tested against an actual live trade when one occurs

Operational notes

Render instance: now on Standard (2GB RAM) - should comfortably handle normal usage including heavy calls (full event pulls, wide hit-rate lookbacks).

MCP connector caching: remove/re-add if new tools/behavior don't show up after redeploy.

Start Command must be exactly npm start.

Deploy to Render

1. Upload this folder's contents to the GitHub repo (overwrite existing files)
2. Render auto-redeploys
3. Verify: https://YOUR-SERVICE.onrender.com/health
4. Remove/re-add the MCP connector if tools seem stale

Adding NBA/NHL later

1. Get a BALLDONTLIE subscription for that sport
2. Add one entry to SPORT_CONFIG in src/constants.ts
3. Push to GitHub

Local development

npm install
npm run build
SGO_API_KEY=xxx BDL_API_KEY=xxx npm start