Like most sports, Major League Baseball always strives for parity because the more teams involved in the playoff run, the more attention they get from their fans, either by attending games or subscribing to their teams’ streaming service. That’s the major reason why MLB expanded the playoff pool last season by one team in each league. But there’s a catch this year. Every division but one already has a runaway winner.
If you refer to the standings every day as most passionate baseball fans do, you’ll notice something unusual. There is a dominant team in every division, with leads now approaching double digits, except for the American League East, which has two dominant teams in the New York Yankees and the Baltimore Orioles. Teams with losing records now dominate the majors, with only 13 teams out of 30 with a record above .500.
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Division Data
In the National League West, the true super team with the $700 million man, Shohei Otani, the Los Angeles Dodgers are up 8.5 games over the San Diego Padres at this writing. And even though they endured a mini-slump last week, the Dodgers actually extended their lead.
In the National League Central, the Milwaukee Brewers are showing that the loss of manager Craig Counsel to the rival Chicago Cubs didn’t really matter. The Brew Crew has a 5.5 game lead over the surprising St. Louis Cardinals and the others in that division are almost 10 games out.
The National League East has the surprising Philadelphia Phillies up by 8 games over the crippled Atlanta Braves, who lost their lynchpin, Ronald Acuna Jr. for the year. All the other teams have lost sight of the Phils, coming up on 15 games out.
American Hustle
In the junior circuit, the American League East is becoming a slugfest between the Yankees and the Orioles. The O’s were as much as 7 games out at one point, but began a charge combined with a Yankees slump and are now within two games of the Bronx Bombers. This should be a race to the finish and the most interesting one in baseball at this point.
The American League Central is controlled by the Cleveland Guardians. They have an eight game bulge over the Minnesota Twins, with the surprising Kansas City Royals just one game behind them.
And the American League West is the most fascinating. The Houston Astros, who controlled the division for the last decade, got off to a horrible start. But the Astros appear to have woken up. Anyone hear trash cans being slammed? The Astros have closed to within six games of the Seattle Mariners, who always seem to find a way to ruin their playoff hopes late in the season.
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Betting Opportunities
So with seven teams clearly the cream of the crop in MLB, how can you maximize profits? Tommy Lasorda, the legendary Dodgers manager, used to say that every team, no matter how good or bad, would win 1/3 of its games and lose 1/3 of its games. The difference, Tommy claimed, was what you did with the other third.
The Phillies have won every game in that third of their games. At this writing they are 52-26 for a .667 winning percentage. As Tommy said, you can’t do any better than that. The Guardians, at .658, and the Yankees at .650 are close behind. Will they keep up that pace? If they do, betting on them to win every game would produce a nice profit.
But how about the teams that may collapse? We’ve already mentioned Seattle, with the now-hungry Astros right on their heels. Bet against them? Makes sense.
The Dodgers, like the Braves, lost what is arguably their best player when Mookie Betts was hit on the hand resulting in a fracture. And even before that, the lower third of the Dodgers lineup has been particularly inept, so how will the Mookie-less team survive?
The trade deadline comes up at the end of July. What teams will be sellers and what players could make an impact? The very disappointing Toronto Blue Jays have some great players that could be difference makers for any team looking to make a late-season run. The Oakland A’s have a closer who is lights out. Too bad the team stinks so that he doesn’t get a chance to close that often, but if a contending team makes an amazing offer, the A’s might let him go. Like many of their star players.
