It has been a while since we checked in on Major League Baseball. Lets take a look at the updated odds for each team to win their division, league pennant, and World Series, and analyze some of the predictions we made earlier on this season.
Division Odds
We will be taking all of our lines from Bet365. They provide a fair price on every game, and take a significant amount of action at high-limits. This gives us an accurate reflection of the current betting market.
The Royals in the AL central are already a done-deal, turning up at -125000. We do not need to talk about them.
Teams that were looking to have ran away with their division are not looking so hot anymore. The Texas Rangers (+380), Toronto Blue Jays (-130), and San Francisco Giants (+175) are have slowly crept their way up the standings. In our previous article, I advised purchasing pennant futures on the Blue Jays, Mets, Giants, and Pirates. All of which have moved in the right direction since those wagers. This is apparent based on their current division odds.
I believe the Blue Jays will eventually beat the Yankees to claim the AL east. Both teams play 7 more games against each other. It is possible that the return of Michael Pineda to the now-six man rotation will rejuvenate New York, but with an unclear time-table for Mark Teixeira’s return, and a roster that is bound to regress to the mean, I do not believe it will be enough. A -130 price for them to overcome their 0.5 games-back deficit is a gift that should otherwise be priced below -160. The Blue Jays have been destroying everyone in their path on a 18-4 run, and to be completely honest, they have been under-performing. Troy Tulowitzki has been terrible since coming over from Colorado, barely putting up a .200 batting average. He will not continue that for the rest of the season. Josh Donaldson is as good as he appears to be, so I would not expect any significant regression on any stat markets besides home-runs. Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion, the two “old guys” on this new-look roster, are finally playing up to their potential. How about Ben Revere, who lead the National League in hits last season who has only now begun to be a productive player for his new team. And we cannot forget about Devon Travis and Marcus Stroman, who are both probable to return before the end of the regular season. Yeah, exactly.
The Dodgers are something else. For the first time in history a team has surpassed the $300 million dollar luxury tax mark. And they suck. Right after acquiring Chase Utley, they find themselves no-hit by Mike Fiers. I believe the Dodgers will prove to do the opposite of the Yankees down the closing stretch of the season, and they will finally start playing to their true potential. They will run away with the division, and the Giants will come up just short. Its difficult to advise betting on a -240, especially given their recent form. Overall, I believe this line is set very close to the true-line, and staying away would be very advisable.
Not one person has said a thing about the Texas Rangers. Even after they acquired Cole Hamels, no one wanted to talk about them. Well here they are, you do not really have a choice anymore. I was tempted to throw something about the Rangers into the last article about pennant odds. I felt as though they would pull a comeback more often than their odds suggested, and that they would match up well against any team come the post-season. This was before the Hamels deal, and even if it weren’t, I would probably still be too much of a coward to include it. But now I am the one looking like a fool.
They are not a bad team. A lot of people have trouble looking season-to-season. Last year they were awful, and most individuals have not forgotten that. The truth is that they did not have a rotation last year, and most of their star players were either injured (Fielder) or in massive slumps (Shoo, Beltre). While they are still missing two of their best pitchers (Darvish, Holland), they are still making up an insane amount of ground in the standings, which they continued to do yesterday against Randy Wolf and the Tigers. As much as I am sitting here waiting for the Houston Astros to regress to the terrible team that they are, I unfortunately believe it will not happen during the regular season. I am not sure the Rangers will hang on to the Wild Card spot that they moved into yesterday, let alone make a serious challenge for the division. Thus I advise staying away from their very-tempting +380 series line.
Pennant Odds
I probably should have waited for this section of the article to circle-jerk myself for making four great pennant predictions, but I couldn’t wait. Its called premature ejaculation, and the prostitute that I cried in front of for two hours last night says its perfectly normal.
The Royals and Blue Jays sit as +275 co-favorites atop the American League at the start of play today. Division-leader Yankees are +400, and the Astros are +450. I stand by my initial prediction that I believe the AL east will win the pennant this year. I do not think the Orioles have the necessary rotation to keep competing with the Angels, Rangers, and Blue Jays/Yankees for one of the two Wild Card spots. Is it worth purchasing the Yankees at +400? I believe we are at the cut-off point of it being worth-it, which generally means that you are scratching at straws, or whatever that stupid expression is.
(EDIT: Grasping at straws. Still stupid)
I believe the best advise to give is to stay away from American League pennant odds altogether. I find it difficult to take the Royals as a co-favorite, and would rather pay +275 for Toronto IF they were firmly ahead in their division. While I stated that I believe they will win by a large margin, nothing is for certain. Spend your money elsewhere.
In terms of the National League, our interest into the Mets (+1200 to +350), Pirates (+850 to +500), and Giants (+1200 to +1000) have all trended in the right direction. While its getting to the point where we can safely assume that the Mets and Pirates will make the playoffs (barring another epic Nationals end-of-season run, which will happen now that I wrote this, sorry New Yorkers) we need to predict how well they will do in post-season play. The Pirates do not have the rotation to keep up with other teams, plain and simple. Cole is a fantastic pitcher, but it ends right there. Liriano is due for some regression, which has already started to hit him hard over the last few starts. After that, who do you have? Locke? Happ? It is an absolute disaster. Unless you have a line-up like Toronto that can make up for certain rotation weaknesses, you are not going to go far enough. If you are holding on to a Pirates ticket, its time to think about how you will hedge it once they reach the playoffs.
The Mets have the rotation, and now they have the line-up. Do we buy? Absolutely not. If you did not get in on the +1200, then I would probably advise staying away. They are lower than they should be. Regardless of how well they are playing, I believe there is still a much bigger margin between them and the Pirates and Dodgers. We can say what we want about the recent performance of the most expensive team in baseball, but they are all-around a better team than the Mets. Avoid any steam-chasing here.
In short, avoid betting on any pennant lines. It is too late in the season to get a significant edge.
World Series Odds
Cardinals, Royals, and Blue Jays are now all +550 co-favorites to win the World Series. This is followed by the Dodgers, Mets, and Yankees, all +800 runners-up. I believe if the Dodgers end up playing as good as they can, they will be in the World Series. The reason why I advise against purchasing their pennant odds instead is because if they reach the level they need to play at to defeat the Cardinals, they will certainly have enough to win it all. Consider a play on them at +800 while they are in the midst of their current slump.
For the American League, you probably know which team I am going to pick given how much I have fawned over their recent additions. The Blue Jays at +550 to take it all is still very much worth it. If you can get an exact-match up line this late in the season, you cannot go wrong by picking the Dodgers defeating the Blue Jays in the final game of the season. Thats where my current prediction lies.