Baseball Handicapping Articles

Expert MLB Betting Advice: 2018 Rotations that Are Tough to Wager On
by Trevor Whenham - 3/7/2018

Good pitching can make a bad team look decent, and it can make a decent team look awful. No other position in sports - not even a starting quarterback in football - more singularly determines how a team fares and how easy it is to trust them as bettors. And this year in the major leagues, as every year, there are some awful rotations - groups of pitchers so bad that their teams have almost no hope of getting good pitching on any kind of a consistent basis. The more bettors can understand and embrace how questionable these rotations are, the better positioned they are to exploit those struggles to produce profits.

2018 Atlanta Braves Expert Predictions and Odds to Win the World Series
by Chris Vasile - 3/5/2018

I liked the MLB when the Atlanta Braves were a relevant franchise who competed amongst the upper echelon of the league's elite teams for the World Series title. The glory days saw legends like Chipper Jones, Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, Tom Glavine and Andruw Jones all suit up for the Braves and play their part in one of the longest streaks in pro sports history. From 1991-2005 the Atlanta Braves won 15 consecutive division titles. At that time, it was the most consecutive division titles in any sport.

2018 Kansas City Royals Expert Predictions and Odds to Win the World Series
by Trevor Whenham - 3/5/2018

The Kansas City Royals are a very clear lesson in how fleeting success is and how much you should appreciate it while you have it. They won 86 games in 2013 but missed the playoffs. The next year they won 89 games and then lost the World Series in seven games to the Giants. 2015 was what they were building to, though, and they won 95 games and took the World Series in just five games over the Mets.

2018 Seattle Mariners Expert Predictions and Odds to Win the World Series
by Trevor Whenham - 3/5/2018

I'm not mad at the Seattle Mariners at this point. Just disappointed. For more years than I can count I have believed that for the respective year the team was close to a breakthrough. When I was a kid their AAA team played just down the street from me, so I saw so many young studs - Edgar Martinez, Tino Martinez, A-Rod, Danny Tartabull, Jay Buhner, Omar Vizquel, even Ken Griffey Jr. for an extremely brief time - come through that I figured bright days were around the corner. And I'm still waiting for them to go around that corner.

2018 Oakland Athletics Expert Predictions and Odds to Win the World Series
by Trevor Whenham - 3/5/2018

The Oakland Athletics made the playoffs three straight years from 2012 to 2014. It can be easy to forget that, though, because they have been so anonymous and underwhelming since then. Moneyball is never flashy, and that's especially true when they are rebuilding. Well, quietly they have been doing a decent job of their rebuild. There is still work to do, but this team won 75 games last year and, at least on paper, are better this year. Fans should not plan a parade just yet, and they still have to deal with playing in the worst stadium in the league, but there is room for cautious optimism here.

2018 Texas Rangers Expert Predictions and Odds to Win the World Series
by Trevor Whenham - 3/5/2018

A while ago I was lying in bed just drifting off when I was shaken by a loud bang - something like a sonic boom. I wasn't sure what it was, and my wife and son didn't notice, so I forgot about it and fell asleep. Only a few days later did I realize that it was the Texas Rangers' window to relevance slamming shut. From 2010-2016 the team made the playoffs in five of seven years and lost the World Series twice. They were a model franchise.

2018 Chicago White Sox Expert Predictions and Odds to Win the World Series
by Trevor Whenham - 3/5/2018

Are the White Sox rebuilding, or have they just given up? It's been a fair question to ask at times the last couple of years. But there is a bit of talent here, and the more optimistic out there could believe that they are ready to turn a corner and take some steps forward. We're not talking a corner like the Twins turned last year, to be clear. But the upside for the team this year is that they are not awful, and that will be a welcome change. They are helped by being grouped with as bad a bottom half of a division as you can find. But will that be enough? What does the season hold for this team?

2018 Detroit Tigers Expert Predictions and Odds to Win the World Series
by Trevor Whenham - 3/5/2018

The Tigers are following an interesting recipe - wait until the last minute to admit you are rebuilding and then do it in the most soul-crushing way that almost guarantees to be long and painful. I don't know how fun it has ever been to be a fan of the Tigers - at least in a couple of decades - but this is going to be as bad as it has ever been. It's as if they watched the Marlins totally dismantle their team and felt like they had been challenged to prove that they could be better at being awful. But how bad can this team be? And will they provide any sneaky value for bettors at any point along the way?

2018 Washington Nationals Expert Predictions and Odds to Win the World Series
by Chris Vasile - 3/2/2018

The Washington Nationals have won the NL East four times in the last six years. In most cases, that should translate to some sort of postseason success. However, for the Nationals and their fan base it has left them frustrated beyond belief. Despite those four division banners, the Nationals have yet to win a playoff series. They've lost to the Cardinals, Giants, Dodgers and Cubs all in the NLDS. It's hard to believe a team with such a potent starting rotation and a talented group of core players has yet to get over the hump.

2018 Cleveland Indians Expert Predictions and Odds to Win the World Series
by Trevor Whenham - 3/2/2018

It has been a great two-year run for the Indians. They lost Game 7 of the World Series in 2016 and then won 102 games last year - 22 of those wins coming consecutively - before a tough Game 5 loss to the Yankees in the ALDS. And they should be poised for another big season. It feels like this season has some extra urgency, though, because it could be the beginning of the end of an era. Both big pieces of the bullpen will be free agents following the season, and they will face several other key decisions next year.

2018 Minnesota Twins Expert Predictions and Odds to Win the World Series
by Trevor Whenham - 3/2/2018

On the surface last year was a decent-but-unremarkable season for the Minnesota Twins. They won 85 games to grab the last wild-card spot and then lost the wild-card game to make their postseason life last for one night. Fine, but not earth shattering. But when you consider that the team lost a league-worst 103 games in 2016, last year was just incredible.

2018 Los Angeles Angels Expert Predictions and Odds to Win the World Series
by Trevor Whenham - 3/2/2018

Mike Trout, pretty much universally viewed as the best player in the game, has been in the league for six seasons. The Los Angeles Angels have been somewhere between ordinary and bad for five of those years. The only 'good' year was 2014 when they won the division, but then they were swept by the Royals in the ALDS. It's a shocking waste of a generational talent.

2018 Houston Astros Expert Predictions and Odds to Win the World Series
by Trevor Whenham - 3/2/2018

Winning was hard, but the Astros made it look pretty easy. Now we get to see if they can make what so many teams have proved to be almost impossible look just as easy. They are back to defend their title, and they are doing it with pretty much the same team they had last year. We know how good the team can be. But will the amount of ball they have played wear on them? Or will they believe their headlines and find their heads are too big to fit in the clubhouse?

Expert MLB Betting Advice for 2018: Toughest Aces to Judge
by Trevor Whenham - 2/27/2018

The term 'ace' is perhaps the most abused in baseball. People talk about the first starter of a team as the ace - even if they have not done anything to earn the term other than being better than the other guys on a questionable rotation. Daily, though, you'll see and hear talk in the media of an ace heading to the mound. Bettors, especially casual bettors, react to this and give the pitcher more credit than he might deserve because he is viewed as the ace.

MLB Betting Primer 2018: Best and Worst Bets Last Season
by Trevor Whenham - 2/27/2018

Every year there are teams in Major League Baseball that make their backers buckets full of money. And there are those that put bettors' money in a pile and light it on fire. Obviously, the more of the former and the fewer of the latter you can consistently bet on the better off you are going to be. While there is still time between now and the start of the regular season, it's a good time to look back at last year to see which teams were a great bet on the moneyline, which teams really weren't, and what we might expect from them this year.

2018 Chicago Cubs Expert Predictions and Odds to Win the World Series
by Chris Vasile - 2/27/2018

After the dust settled on the Chicago Cubs' miraculous 2016 World Series title, the Wrigley faithful were left scratching their heads last season in dismay. The Cubs followed up a phenomenal 2016 regular season by winning 11 games fewer (103-58 in 2016, to 92-70 in 2017). Don't get me wrong, a 92-70 record is brilliant, but there were several extended periods of time where the Cubs struggled and looked like a shell of their 2016 self.

2018 Los Angeles Dodgers Expert Predictions and Odds to Win the World Series
by Chris Vasile - 2/27/2018

The Dodgers were one Game 7 win away from ending the franchise's 29-year championship drought. Unfortunately, they just weren't good enough when it mattered most. The starting pitching let them down, the lineup couldn't muster any offense, and the managerial decisions left the majority of fans scratching their heads.

2018 San Francisco Giants Expert Predictions and Odds to Win the World Series
by Chris Vasile - 2/27/2018

The San Francisco Giants have won three of the last eight World Series trophies, with the last triumph coming in 2014. For most franchises one World Series would be enough in that time frame. However, for the Giants, the disappointment of missing the playoffs in two of the last three seasons weighs on them more than the euphoria that three World Titles in the last eight seasons.

2018 St. Louis Cardinals Expert Predictions and Odds to Win the World Series
by Chris Vasile - 2/27/2018

An MLB postseason without the St. Louis Cardinals has been a rare happening for the last decade or so - until recently. The Cardinals have missed two straight postseasons, and fans are starting to get frustrated with the team's direction. Manager Mike Matheny figures to be on the hot seat this season if things aren't going well at the All-Star break.

2018 Colorado Rockies Expert Predictions and Odds to Win the World Series
by Chris Vasile - 2/27/2018

It seems like just yesterday we were watching the Colorado Rockies win 14 of their last 15 games to secure a wild-card spot and eventually play themselves into the 2007 World Series. Unfortunately for Rockies fans, that was 11 years ago, and no season has even come remotely close to that except for last season's wild-card loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Rockies were an 87-win team last year with a rookie manager and a below-average pitching staff. While the manager now has a year of experience under his belt, the pitching staff has taken a step back, so any success the Rockies do run into this year will be courtesy of one of the best batting lineups in the National League.