A Midseason Look at Futures Lines

I thought, at the halfway point of the season, I should take a look at what Futures odds are the best values.

I looked at the futures from four sites- Bodog, SportsBetting, Sports Interaction, and VIP. The odds listed below are the best “Odds to Win 2007 World Series” lines for each team.

To determine what I thought were each team’s chances of winning the World Series are, I took the data from Baseball Prospectus’ Postseason Odds. I used a combination of the real data Postseason Odds, and PECOTA Postseason Odds.

Once I had each team’s percentage chance of making the playoffs, I simply divided that percentage by eight (the total number of playoff teams). This system obviously isn’t perfect, as it gives each postseason team an equal chance of winning the championship. But, after the research I did discovering that regular season record has very little bearing on October success, I am not particularly concerned with this.

Here are, in my estimation, the seven best futures lines:

The fact that the Mariners are 100:1 seems absurd to me. On the other three sites they are 25:1, 35:1 and 28:1. Despite Hargrove’s shocking resignation this afternoon, they are only two behind the Angels in the loss column, having won eight in a row.

The Athletics are in a similar situation. 60:1 on VIP, but their best odds other than that are 35:1 (SportsBetting). Despite all the injuries the A’s, who always play better in the second half, are still in the race.

Those are the two long shots this system likes. The next three are all very similar lines for NL teams that have been playing well. I think these three lines are all good lines to bet on, but none of them seem completely out of place, like the two AL West teams.

The last two on the list are just barely better than breaking even. I think the Cubs, who have been playing better all year than their record indicates, are a solid bet. Their WS % data is also from before their victory over Milwaukee this afternoon. The Indians are probably about where they should be, as they have come down from about 20:1 at the start of the year.

So I think Seattle at 100:1 is definitely the most attractive line. The A’s line is probably second best, with San Diego and Chicago also having pretty good odds.

EDIT (7/4): VIP has updated their odds. Mostly notably, Seattle moved all the way from 100:1 to 35:1, and Oakland moved from 60:1 to 40:1.