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Baseball writers are smart.
So when baseball writers come out and pick who they expect to win a division or represent their league in the World Series, it carries a little bit of weight, but there can be so many differing ideas with one writer expecting the Cardinals to win the division and another expecting it to be the Cubs.
Therefore, rather than looking at baseball writers, I look to the place that makes money off of all of our hope and optimism: Las Vegas.
As we head into the 2024 season there are a couple of interesting betting odds that caught my attention that the Chicago Tribune brought up recently.
Sure, the Dodgers are the odds-on favorites after they added over a billion dollars worth of players this offseason, but there was a team that surprised me as the favorite despite a very quiet offseason.
Division Title?
The Chicago Cubs currently sit at +240, behind the St. Louis Cardinals (+175), for the favorites to win the NL Central.
Win the Pennant?
The odds don’t favor the Cubs to win the National League as they come in at +1700, but that still puts them with the fifth-best odds in the National League behind the St. Louis Cardinals (+1600), the Philadelphia Phillies (+800), the Atlanta Braves (+250) and the Los Angeles Dodgers (+165).
World Series?
Finally, the Cubs are coming in with the 13th best odds to win the World Series at +3700.
Those odds may make it seem impossible for a bet to pay off, and Vegas has certainly made their money preying on the hopeful optimism of fans unencumbered by the frustrations of a season yet to begin, but the Texas Rangers opened the 2023 season at +5000 and the Arizona Diamondbacks opened at +6600 and they played for the World Series last season.
This Cubs team looks awfully close to being capable of doing something fun, and if they were to decide to actually spend like a large-market team and sign OF/1B Cody Bellinger or 3B Matt Chapman then the +3700 number may drop precipitously.
Anything is possible, right?