At the Memorial Day checkpoint of the baseball season, we asked PressBox’s Phil Backert, Ryan Blake, Stan “The Fan” Charles and Glenn Clark to share some of their favorite futures bets with plenty of season remaining. All numbers are from FanDuel in mid-June.
Phil Backert
Yordan Alvarez To Be Regular-Season Home Run Leader (+2300)
It will be a difficult climb to overcome an oblique issue that cropped up in June, but I’ll back one of the best power hitters in all of baseball in Alvarez with those odds. Alvarez ranked in the top five in at-bats per home run in 2022 and is in the top 10 this season. Aaron Judge and Pete Alonso have also battled injuries, keeping the door open for a player like Alvarez to accomplish this feat, and I’m willing to take that chance.
Ryan Blake
Josh Jung To Win American League Rookie of the Year (+210)
The last starting pitcher to win Rookie of the Year was Michael Fulmer in 2016 by virtue of Gary Sanchez playing in only 53 games, which doesn’t give me much confidence in voters going with Hunter Brown unless he dominates during the summer months. That left Masataka Yoshida as Jung’s biggest competition in the AL Rookie of the Year race entering June. I believe the award would have gone to Jung at that point despite worse odds. It’s close between the two, but unless we see a significant resurgence from preseason favorite Gunnar Henderson, I love Jung at +210.
Stan “The Fan” Charles
American League West Team To Win World Series (+380)
This is kind of an interesting bet for me. You can pick what division the World Series winner will come from.
Look, the obvious choice would seem to be the AL East, the one division in baseball without a team below .500 entering the summer months. I know the Rays have been a phenomenal story, playing at a .709 clip through early June. But playing phenomenal ball in April and May is far different than winning the whole enchilada. What AL East teams other than the Rays really look and feel like they have 2023 championship timber?
Forget the AL Central, where the Twins have been leading the pack. The Guardians and White Sox do not look remotely capable of even making a playoff run, though the Guardians were the preseason favorite in this division.
The same scenario is taking place in the NL Central, with only the Brewers and Pirates having hovered around .500. They are both scrappy, but neither seems capable of winning the World Series.
Before the season started, I believed three of the top five teams in all of MLB resided in the NL East: the Braves, Mets and Phillies. A lot can change between now and then, but the Phillies are a train wreck this season after winning the National League in 2022.
Philadelphia’s starting pitching has been awful and the Phillies’ two top left-handed bats, Kyle Schwarber and the great Bryce Harper, added very little to start the year, with Harper missing more than a month recovering from Tommy John surgery. Schwarber began to heat up in June, though.
The Mets have to be a bitter disappointment to owner Steve Cohen. The Mets’ rabid fan base was so excited they finally had an owner who would spend, spend and spend some more, but spending only works when a team signs the right players.
The team that has been the most consistent is the Braves, and they could make a run.
In the NL West, the Padres are every bit the train wreck that the Phillies are. The Dodgers must be considered the favorite, but I’m not sure about their starting pitching. It seems like they are all-in on trying to find out if their homegrown prospects like Gavin Stone, Bobby Miller and Michael Grove can make up for an ineffective Julio Urías and an injured Walker Buehler. I’m just not sold on them or the team.
The Diamondbacks could shock the world, as they are growing up in front of our very eyes. But like the Orioles in the AL East, I think it may all be a bit too new in 2023. Get back to me on both teams in 2024.
That leaves me with one last division to plunk down $100, the AL West. A two-team race is brewing between the 2022 World Series champion Astros and the much improved Rangers. I think both clubs will be there late.
Even without Jacob deGrom, the Rangers have Nathan Eovaldi and Jon Gray pitching brilliantly and Andrew Heaney and Martín Pérez providing steady innings. The bullpen has veteran lefty Will Smith leading the charge and they recently brought up Grant Anderson to help out in the eighth inning.
And if these two teams aren’t good enough, I am not fully counting out the Mariners from coming on late in the regular season.
Bet your C-note on the AL West hauling in the World Series trophy to win $380.00.
Glenn Clark
Aaron Judge To Be Regular-Season Home Run Leader (+460)
When I made this bet on June 1, Judge was two home runs behind Pete Alonso despite playing 10 fewer games. +460 is a borderline absurd value here as long as Judge’s toe injury doesn’t linger. The bad news for you is that by the time you’re reading this, there is almost no chance that value is still close to this. But if it’s even money or even near even money, make the bet.
Texas Rangers To Win The American League West (+110)
Again, when I made this bet (also June 1), the Rangers were three games up on the Astros. I completely understand why the odds are where they are. On paper, the Astros are the best team in baseball. But the Rangers are pretty loaded and their ownership obviously appears willing to go the extra mile to help them come out on top. Given what we’ve seen from them to start the season, it’s a risk worth taking.
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox
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