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Best second-half MLB World Series futures value bets ⚾
Best second-half MLB World Series futures value bets
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Now that we're heading into the second half of the MLB season, it's a great time to take a look again at the futures market for World Series bets and see if there are any teams offering value.
At the quarter-season mark, we added the New York Yankees at +600, but now that they sit at +350 in the current market after separating themselves from the pack in the American League East, it's not worth chasing.
Derek Carty and I both agree on a National League team that offers some value, while he has another AL team he likes.
Here are our second-half MLB futures value bets.
Washington Nationals (25-1)
My projections have the Nationals winning the World Series 5.7 percent of the time (or a true line of +1654). At +2500, however, we only need them to win it all roughly 3.85 percent of the time to break even. This isn't a colossal edge in the grand scheme of things, but of the 30 teams in the majors, the Nationals are the only one showing an edge relative to the futures market.
If you want to take a small stab on a longer shot still flying relatively under the radar, Washington is that team. Considering the Nationals have won 28 of their past 40 games, it feels funny referring to them as a team flying under the radar. Maybe it's the fact that they were just so bad to start the season. But they have been playing at a 112-win pace for the past quarter of the season (closer to a 110-win pace converting their plus-67 run differential over that span). The fact that they are still 25-1 is somewhat surprising to me, especially considering they now sit atop the National League wild-card race.
Once that wild-card game hits (I have Washington winning the NL East outright 26.3 percent of the time too), there probably still isn't a pitcher I would prefer on the mound in the National League over Max Scherzer. He is posting a 2.30 ERA despite a career-high .322 batting average on batted balls in play (BABIP). Scherzer has been fairly unlucky in those cases this season. The reasons he still is producing at an elite level: His strikeout rate is the highest of his career (12.6/9), he has the second-lowest walk rate of his career (1.6/9) and he has the lowest home run rate of his career in a year in which batters are hitting more homers than ever before (0.63/9). Plus, Stephen Strasburg, Patrick Corbin and Anibal Sanchez certainly aren't a bad combination of starters to fill out a playoff rotation.
With the bats popping since Trea Turner's return (he missed six weeks early in the season), the offense can be reliable. The concern for the Nationals is their league-worst bullpen, which is serving a 6.08 ERA this season. The hope is that there is improvement with the pieces they already have in place, but acquisitions via trade to bolster their bullpen will be available, as well. My projections don't account for any future additions, and I still show an edge at 25-1 anyway.
A Yankees-Nationals World Series works for me.
-- Preston Johnson
By both my projection system, THE BAT, and FanGraphs' projected standings, the Nationals are the second-best NL team behind only the Dodgers. That sounds crazy for a team that missed the playoffs last year and only has a small hold on a wild-card spot right now, but it's true. The Nationals are led by three front-line starters in Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin and have a legitimately good offense that has simply been unlucky over the first half of the season. Despite a wRC+ (measures how a player's runs created compares with the league average after adjusting for park effects) that is just 17th best in MLB, THE BAT projects the Nationals as having the eighth-best offense in baseball and expects improved second-half performances from Brian Dozier, Ryan Zimmerman, Matt Adams, Adam Eaton and Yan Gomes -- all of whom are performing well below previous levels.
If the season ended today, the Nats would be in the playoffs. They hold a half-game lead over the Phillies in the wild-card race and a one-game lead over the Brewers. Washington's offense also faces the second-easiest strength of schedule of any NL team in the second half. Pair that with the underlying talent projections from multiple sources saying they've actually underperformed thus far and it seems like a solid bet the Nats will make the postseason -- for which they will project even better, given their utter lack of a viable fifth starter. It's unlikely the Nats will win the NL East, given the Braves' lead, and one-game play-ins are notoriously unpredictable; but with a good chance to make it there and the talent to be favorites against all NL teams except the Dodgers, a potential 25-1 payout sounds good to me.
--Derek Carty
Oakland Athletics (60-1)
From a pure talent standpoint, the A's are quite a bit behind the elite of the American League. Their pitching staff leaves a lot to be desired, but they are aided by a defense that currently ranks fifth in baseball in UZR/150 (ultimate zone rate per 150 games: the number of runs above or below average a fielder is, per 150 defensive games) and projects as the best in the AL going forward. The A's also make up for their below-average pitching with an above-average offense, driven by some potent power bats such as Khris Davis and Matt Chapman.
After the Astros, Yankees, Twins and Red Sox, the three (distant) next-best teams in the AL are pretty well clumped from a projected true talent perspective. The Rays (+1700) and Indians (+2500) hold a slim lead in the wild-card race over Oakland but are given drastically higher odds
The A's are just 1.5 games back of the second spot, and with the Indians potential sellers at the trade deadline (Trevor Bauer's name has been floated around quite a bit recently), that could bode well for Oakland's chances. In addition to Cleveland, the A's also need to fend off the Red Sox (half a game behind Oakland) and/or leapfrog the Rays (two games ahead of Oakland), and they would be an underdog straight-up against either one. But if they were to make the playoffs, at +6000, the A's would need to have something like a 2 percent chance of winning the World Series to justify the odds.
Now, they have to actually get to the postseason first, and they are an underdog to do so -- but not by anywhere near enough to pass on a 60-to-1 payout.
--Derek Carty
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Originally Posted by TheMoneyShot
