AL Wild Card Odds

BetUS has posted odds on which team will win the Wild Card. Those are listed in the first numerical column below. The second column is what the odds should be, at least according to Baseball Prospectus' Postseason Odds.

We clearly have a disagreement of Boston's chances of winning the Wild Card.

A quick look at the current standings shows that the Red Sox currently have a 1.5 game lead on the Twins for the WC. The White Sox also come into the picture, since they're only a game up on Minnesota in the Central. So, the standings among those three teams look like this:

These odds were essentially made by looking at their relative records, I think. The White Sox were docked a bit because they're currently leading the division, but that's pretty much it.

That is really not an accurate way of looking at it. The Red Sox only need to beat out one of CHW/MIN, and it's not like they have to choose which one right now; it's just whichever team has a worse record on September 29. That is just not going to be that hard. BPro has the Red Sox as a .609 team, with Chicago and Minnesota at .568 and .512, respectively. That might be a little high for Boston, and a little low for Minnesota, and thus overstate their case a bit, but not by all that much. Boston is no less than 50-50 to win the Wild Card, which is certainly good enough if you're getting +175.

As noted in the first table, the Rays odds are pretty good as well. The chance that the Rays win the Wild Card cuts into Boston's chances a little bit, but that's obviously factored in by BPro. Tampa's odds here are not as good as Boston's, but they're still pretty solid. Especially so if you are looking for a partial hedge of a "Rays to win the AL East" bet. Not that I know anyone in that position.