Betting Baseball at Your Favorite Online Sportsbook

Now that your bracket is officially busted for this year’s NCAA Tournament in men’s college basketball, it is time to turn your attention the ‘Boys of Summer’. The new MLB season is set to kick off this Thursday with all 30 teams in action on Opening Day. Every team is a World Series contender heading into the first game of a 162-game regular season. However, once the wins and losses start piling up in the standings, the contenders will start to separate themselves from the pretenders.

Most MLB futures odds at online sportsbooks have the New York Yankees listed as favorites to win this year’s title. They also have their bitter AL East rival Boston Red Sox listed as second-favorites to repeat as reigning champs. This should set up another great battle just to win the division title. New York won 100 games last season and had to settle for a wild card spot in the AL since it was eight full games behind Boston. The Red Sox went on to squeeze past the Yankees with a 3-2 series win in the 2018 ALDS. They knocked off Houston and the Los Angeles Dodgers on their way to league title honors.

A pair of high profile sluggers found new homes heading into Opening Day with short stop Manny Muchado moving down the Southern California Coast to San Diego while outfielder Bryce Harper made the trip up I-95 from Washington DC to Philadelphia. What kind of impact each player has on his team’s fortunes remain to be scene.

The Padres’ odds to win the NL West this season are still long at +1200. The outlook for the Phillies is laced with rather high expectations as +450 co-favorites with the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the NL Pennant. Philadelphia also has the same +800 betting odds as Los Angeles to win the 2019 World Series. Both teams are fourth on the list after the Yankees, Red Sox and Houston Astros.

There is a whole grocery list of MLB futures and season-long props on the betting board ahead of the start of the regular season. Yankees sluggers’ Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge are at the top of the board to hit the most home runs and staff starter Luis Severino is high on the list for most wins. This is one of the reasons why New York has such favorable odds to win it all this season.

Harper starts his stint in Philadelphia as the favorite to win NL MVP in 2019 at +500 betting odds. Mike Trout resumes his spot at the top of the MVP list in the AL at +250 odds. When it comes to winning each league’s Cy Young, Cleveland’s Corey Kluber (+260) gets the slight edge over Boston’s Chris Sale as a +325 second-favorite. Over in the NL, Washington’s Max Scherzer tops the list as a +250 favorite to win the Cy Young. The New York Mets’ Jacob DeGrom is next at +400 betting odds.

Betting the MLB games themselves offer daily opportunities on the moneyline, total and run line. All the top online sportsbooks for baseball also offer a full set of game, team and player props for every single contest. There are few sports that offer as many daily opportunities to bet on the games than Major League Baseball.

You still have a few days before the games start counting for real in the standings. Once you set your starting MLB baseball betting budget, it is time to put your handicapping skills to the test. The trick is to find a few teams primed for that all-important fast start out of the gate as your go-to bets.