MLB Predictions 2024 | Best Bets for All 30 Teams

The 2024 MLB season begins on Thursday, and before getting your bets down on all 15 games, you might want to catch up on how to bet all 30 teams in the futures market.

Well, you've come to the right place.

Below, you'll find MLB odds for all 30 team, as well as a selected bet given out by one of our experts in the futures market.

MLB Predictions 2024 | Best Bets for All 30 Teams

Click on a team below to navigate to its section.

AMERICAN LEAGUE EAST	NATIONAL LEAGUE EAST
Yankees	Braves
Orioles	Phillies
Blue Jays	Mets
Rays	Marlins
Red Sox	Nationals
AMERICAN LEAGUE CENTRAL	NATIONAL LEAGUE CENTRAL
Twins	Cardinals
Tigers	Cubs
Guardians	Reds
Royals	Brewers
White Sox	Pirates
AMERICAN LEAGUE WEST	NATIONAL LEAGUE WEST
Astros	Dodgers
Rangers	Diamondbacks
Mariners	Padres
Angels	Giants
Athletics	Rockies

Below odds are all via FanDuel and as of Tuesday. For extra value betting the 2024 MLB season, use our FanDuel Promo Code and get bonus bets as a new user welcome.

American League East

New York Yankees

Best Bet: Juan Soto Home Run Leader

Alex Hinton: Over the last two seasons, nine hitters have hit at least 40 homers in a season, with Kyle Schwarber doing it twice. Juan Soto is not part of that group, but he enters 2024 in a great position to set a career high in home runs.

With Soto joining the Yankees this offseason following the trade with the Padres, he will play half of his games at Yankee Stadium. While Soto has power to all fields, the short porch in right field makes Yankee Stadium one of the most favorable ballparks for left-handed power hitters. He also joins a division with other hitters ballparks, such as Rogers Centre and Fenway Park.

Soto is one of the most disciplined hitters in the league. He has drawn 100 or more walks in each of the last four full seasons. As a result, he loses some chances to hit home runs by drawing walks.

However, Soto will most likely bat second in Aaron Boone’s lineup and in front of Aaron Judge. While Soto will draw his share of walks, the idea of facing Judge with a man or two on base is not very fun for many pitchers. The protection from Judge will give Soto better pitches to hit.

Judge is also a candidate to lead the MLB in home runs. He already led the American League in home runs in his rookie year in 2017 and then led the majors when he hit 62 home runs in 2022. However, Judge has missed time with injuries and said recently that the toe injury he suffered last season will likely be something he has to manage for the rest of his career.

Judge still finished 10th in the MLB in home runs last season, but he was limited to 106 games. Let’s assume Judge does not have any lengthy IL stints this season, but while managing his toe, he plays 140 games. Soto played in every game last season and he has played in at least 151 games in each of the last three years. If Soto plays 20 more games than Judge, that is potentially 60-80 more at-bats he will have over Judge. That difference could amount to 6-8 home runs and enough to give him an edge in this race.

Additionally, there is value on Soto in this market compared to the AL MVP odds. Judge is the betting favorite to lead the MLB in home runs at +375 on ESPN BET. He is also the favorite for AL MVP at +550 while Soto is +600. For Soto to win MVP over Judge, he will likely need to hit more home runs than him, given that Judge is the better defender of the two.

I’ll take the value on Soto here.

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Baltimore Orioles

Best Bet: Win Total Under

Sean Zerillo: By run differential, Baltimore drastically overachieved (+7 in Pythagorean win differential), and would have finished with just 87 wins if you flipped the result of every one-run game.

Teams that excel in either stat — let alone both — tend to regress in the following season,  and the Orioles' bullpen, which ranked second in WAR and xFIP (3.94) last season, projects closer to middle of the pack than top-tier in 2024.

Additionally, while the Orioles acquired Corbin Burnes, spring injuries to Kyle Bradish and John Means will re-allocate some innings to lesser pitchers — limiting the upside for this club despite incredible young offensive depth.

After the Bradish injury, most books lowered their win total for Baltimore — except for one. I like the Orioles Under to 91; the composite projection would take them Under 90.5. All projections like them to go Under (range 84 to 90) this season.

Additionally, there's value in Baltimore to miss the playoffs (public projection +145; listed +180). However, my personal fair line is closer to the market odds, considering I'm higher on Baltimore than the public projection. And I prefer their offensive depth to the Yankees if I'm picking teams to potentially fall apart entirely.

With Montgomery and Snell still available — and a new owner taking over in Baltimore — I'd rather not bet the latter until closer to Opening Day.

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Toronto Blue Jays

Best Bet: Kevin Gausman's Strikeout Total Under

Brad Cunningham: Kevin Gausman has cleared this number in two of his last three seasons, but for a pitcher who is now at the age of 33, maintaining what is essentially an 11 K/9 rate for a full season is an incredibly hard thing to do.

Gausman does have one of the nastiest pitches in baseball in his arsenal. His splitter generated a 43.2% whiff rate and accounted for 127 of his 237 strikeouts. However, even with that deadly pitch he basically only throws that and a fastball. The effectiveness of his splitter has incrementally been going down over the years. Two years ago with the Giants, the vertical drop on it was 37 inches, whereas last year it dropped to 32.2 inches.

With that effectiveness going down, it's going to be really hard to hit 227 strikeouts. Even the most optimistic projection has him throwing 193 innings and only getting to 222 strikeouts, so there is quite a bit of value on taking his Under.

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Tampa Bay Rays

Best Bet: Win Total Over

Sean Zerillo: The Rays had the best Pythagorean record in the American League last season, and if you flipped the result of every one-run contest, they would have cleared the division by 14 games.

While their starting rotation looks entirely different than at the start of last season (four of five starters hurt or traded), the Rays will continue to turn unheralded arms (like Ryan Pepiot) into stars — and may get Jeffrey Springs and Drew Rasmussen back for the stretch run. They have an underrated offensive core (Yandy Diaz, Brandon Lowe, Randy Arozarena, Josh Lowe and Junior Caminero) with as much depth as ever, play elite defense and develop shutdown relievers.

I projected the Rays for 89 wins. Public projections put them between 85 and 87, but I could make an argument that the Rays are the most consistently under-projected team in baseball. Over the past five full seasons, Tampa Bay has had an average preseason win total of 85.3 and finished with an average of 94.2 wins:

Composite Projected Wins / Actual Wins

• 2018: 80.5 / 90
• 2019: 85.8 / 96
• 2021: 86.5 / 100
• 2022: 86.3 / 86
• 2023: 87.4 / 99

I'd recommend betting the Rays Over up to 84.5 if you're using the composite projection or 86 if you're using my projection.

I see just a three-win gap between the Yankees and the Rays — most similar to the FanGraphs' playoff odds (2.5 win differential), which has Tampa Bay at 23.9% (+318 implied odds) to win the division, 61.2% (-158 implied) to make the postseason and 4.4% (+2172 implied) to win its first championship.

The public projection takes a more conservative estimate but still thinks the Rays should be minus money to make the playoffs, +564 to win the AL East and about 31-1 to win the World Series.

If you're betting the Rays win total Over, you should also be betting those correlated outcomes.

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Boston Red Sox

Best Bet: Nick Pivetta Strikeout Leader

Sean Zerillo: I think Nick Pivetta has a chance to lead the league in strikeouts this year. That may sound crazy, but in the second half of last season he had a 35% strikeout rate. He finally figured out his pitch mix.

If you combine his 2023 second-half strikeout rate with his 2022 workload, Pivetta strikes out 270 batters. The signs are there that Pivetta finally unlocked what he's been looking for forever.

I know he's 31-years-old, but he wouldn't be the first pitcher to hit his stride and peak in his 30s. Sometimes it just takes a little bit longer. Pivetta has been working on a pitch mix forever, experimenting with different pitch mixes. I think he finally found it in the second half of last year and pitched as well as basically anyone in baseball.

Pivetta is definitely worth poking from some long-shot perspectives.

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American League Central

Minnesota Twins

Best Bet: To Win World Series

Sean Zerillo: While both my projection and the public projection (range 85-89) create a composite that directly aligns with Minnesota's win total, there's value in this team to make a deep playoff run after winning its first postseason series in 21 years.

The Twins have high-end starting pitching, live arms in their bullpen and a potentially dangerous — albeit fragile — lineup.

PECOTA puts the Twins' World Series chances at 6.1% (+1538 implied), while FanGraphs has 3.6% (+2677 implied) and ZIPS is at 3.8% (+2531 implied). All are substantially more optimistic than their best available odds of +4000 (2.44% implied).

While I'm taking a shot against the Twins to win the division, I still like their odds of making the playoffs and posing a threat for the AL pennant if their key pieces survive the season.

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Detroit Tigers

Best Bet: Jack Flaherty's Strikeout Total Over

Brad Cunningham: This is a pretty good buy-low spot on Jack Flaherty. He's been terrible the past few seasons with an xERA well above five, but when he gets outs, they're usually strikeouts.

Despite giving up a ton of runs the last two seasons, Flaherty has maintained a K/9 rate above nine in all but one of his past six seasons. He's looked pretty good so far in spring training with his velocity up a few ticks, which could be an encouraging sign that he is finding the form he had in 2018 and 2019.

Flaherty has battled injuries and this is a bet on him staying healthy, but he did throw 144 innings last season at a 9.23 K/9 rate. If his velocity is improving and he pitches for a full season, he's going to clear this total easily.

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Cleveland Guardians

Best Bet: To Win AL Central

Sean Zerillo: The public projection likes the Guardians to win 81-85 games and surpass their win total, but I'd want Over 77.5 or better to place a bet compared to the composite projection.

At current odds, there's more value in betting Cleveland to win the AL Central (public projection +234) and to make the playoffs (public projection +144) at this stage. Even if I eliminate the most optimistic projection from that forecast, I still get projected odds of +326 and +174, respectively, compared to listed odds of +400 and +250.

Considering I am slightly high on Cleveland compared to its win total — and low on each of the other four teams — the Guardians are the clear standout value play in the division.

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Kansas City Royals

Best Bet: Bobby Witt Jr. AL MVP

John Feltman: These odds are way too juicy to pass up. Considering Shohei Ohtani is now in the National League, this opens up an opportunity for someone to rise in the American League and enter the MVP conversation.

Bobby Witt Jr. is a damn good baseball player. The 23-year-old swatted 30 HRs last season, and you could argue his ceiling has not been reached. Not only did he flash the power, but he had 49 swiped bags and tallied 96 RBI.

Witt hit .276, but I'd argue his average can climb even higher. His walk rate slightly increased and his K-rate also declined. Taking a deeper look into his batted balls, his soft contact decreased while his medium and hard hit percentages increased. He finished the season with a 5.7 WAR, which was fourth in the AL.

The Royals are a legitimate dark horse in the AL Central considering the White Sox are entering a full rebuild, and the Guardians and Twins are not head and shoulders above them in the talent department. The young core they are starting to put together is extremely talented and their rotation is improved.

Witt has smashed three taters in spring thus far, and I smell another monster season from him. With Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge already dealing with nagging injuries in spring, it is never a guarantee he stays fully healthy.

A price of 20-1 is ridiculously long for a player like Witt, and if the Royals end up contending for the postseason it will be mostly because of Witt's production. Do not be surprised to see the young phenom shortstop take another step forward and put up even more ridiculous numbers in 2024.

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Chicago White Sox

Best Bet: Dominic Fletcher AL Rookie of the Year

Kenny Ducey: Rookie of the Year can be a highly volatile market. Just because someone wins this award does not mean they’re the most talented rookie or the one who will go on to have a better career. A lot of it is opportunity, and where a player’s level is at the present moment in time rather than their future value.

That’s why I like taking a big swing in the American League market. Yes, the thought of fading a blue-chip prospect like Evan Carter is a scary one with his .306/.413/.645 line in his first 75 plate appearances last season. But there was another guy to put up great counting stats in his first-ever taste of big league action – and his name is Dominic Fletcher.

Fletcher comes from a family that knows how to put the bat on the baseball, following in the footsteps of his brother, David, who owns a .277 career average for the Angels in six seasons and even received an MVP vote in 2020. While his brother was limited as a slap hitter, Dominic can drive the ball a bit better and thus probably has a higher ceiling at the next level.

All the former Arkansas Razorback has done is hit .295 across all minor-league levels and hit a blistering .312 last season before hitting .301 in 102 plate appearances with the Diamondbacks. Now in Chicago after a trade to the White Sox, he is projected to be the team’s Opening Day starter in right field and an important bat in the middle of the order.

Carter possesses more power and is the better all-around hitter, but it’s hard to take issue with a guy who slashed .301/.350/.441 in limited big league action last season. Fletcher is arguably the most seasoned out of anyone gunning for this award at 26 years of age, and he should be locked into a season’s worth of games. If he comes close to hitting .300, I do think he’ll garner plenty of attention from voters – particularly if some of the flashier names in front of him are slow to adjust to big-league pitching.

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American League West

Houston Astros

Best Bet: Yordan Alvarez Home Run Leader

Sean Zerillo: In the past six seasons, the home run leader has averaged between .07 and .09 home runs per plate appearance. Matt Olson finished at .075 in 2023.

Note that this is a curated leaderboard. I left off players projected for fewer than .05 home runs per plate appearance.

Rather than show home runs per plate appearance (HR/PA), I included that data point in a composite ranking — a weighted average of all hitters by the following power indicators: total projected home runs, projected HR/PA, maximum exit velocity and barrel rate.

Yordan Alvarez is my preferred bet at +1200 or better in this category. He projects as a top-five home run hitter by every projection system and paced closer to 45 homers last season on either side of a knee issue that tanked the middle of his campaign (9 HR across 38 games in June, July and August). Alvarez raised his fly ball rate by 6% last year compared to his career average and is still in his prime at age 26, even though he seems older.

There's a 50+ home run season — if not a Triple Crown year — within Alvarez's bat. I'll keep betting on the skills and injury luck to mesh for six months.

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Texas Rangers

Best Bet: Corey Seager Home Run Leader

Jim Turvey: This is a bet I was eyeing while I tried to wait out all the books posting their numbers to be able to shop around. It had been at +7500 at Caesars, but moved to +5000 by the time I was ready to write this article, so I thought I had missed it. I still like it at that number, but then I saw Superbook and my eyes lit up all over again.

Seager left the yard 33 times in just 119 games last season, projecting him out to 45 long balls in a full season. Of course, Seager has notable injury risk, but his health ceiling isn’t terrible, having played 157, 151 and 145 games in seasons in his career.

He plays in a favorable home stadium and somewhat amazingly still hasn’t even turned 30.

Given that this is +5000 at most other books, if you have Superbook, hop on this number while you can.

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Seattle Mariners

Best Bet: Julio Rodriguez AL MVP

Mike Ianniello: Entering his third MLB season, if Julio Rodriguez isn’t considered one of the faces of baseball, he will be after this year. It’s hard to call his 2023 All-Star campaign, which saw him hit 32 home runs with 103 RBI, a disappointment, but I think many people expected even more out of Rodriguez’s sophomore campaign.

After a slow start, Rodriguez was only batting .249 at last season’s All-Star break with a .314 wOBA and 103 wRC+. But he turned it on in the second half of the season, batting .308 with a wOBA of .391 and wRC+ of 156 to end the season. He hit 19 home runs in the second half of the year.

So, what changed? When you look at his batted ball numbers, his HardHit% actually dropped over the second half, and his groundball rate didn’t change much either. His big change was an emphasis on pulling the ball more, increasing his Pull% from 37.1% to 47.9%.

Even with the slow start in 2023, Rodriguez finished fourth in MVP voting. With Shohei Ohtani off to the National League, the AL race is wide open. Yankees teammates Aaron Judge and Juan Soto are the two favorites at the top of the MVP odds, followed by Yordan Alvarez and Corey Seager.

The pair of teammates could end up sharing the spotlight in New York, and Judge and Alvarez have both missed time in recent years. What sets Rodriguez apart from the others is his combination of power and speed. He is one of just two players in the American League to tally 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases last year. He was the only player in MLB to be in the 90th percentile in batting, baserunning and fielding run value. The only other players to post a 30-30 season before the age of 23 are Ronald Acuña Jr., Mike Trout and Alex Rodriguez — all former MVP winners.

Rodriguez’s ability to affect the game in all three phases make him a WAR darling. FanGraphs projects him to finish third in the AL in WAR, just 0.4 behind Judge and Soto. Given the way J-Rod ended the 2023 season, if he can maintain a pace even close to that for the entire season, he will win the MVP.

I love getting anything above +1000 for Rodriguez.

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Los Angeles Angels

Best Bet: Win Total Under

Jim Turvey: The Angels have averaged basically this exact number over the past five years (73.0 to be exact, if we prorate 2020), and that was with potentially the most talented baseball player of all time.

They have had crazy bad injury luck during that run, but at some point it becomes a pattern, and even if I account for luck of all sorts last season, I only get them to 76 wins. Losing the 8.8 rWAR of Ohtani gets them easily into the 60s for a 2024 projection.

This is also a team that basically acts as the reverse Rays. Intriguing players come here and seem to instantly get less valuable and interesting. There is clearly some sort of rot at the core level, and while the idea of a Ohtani Ewing Theory is funny, I think it’s also incredibly unlikely.

I’ll be even eyeing some “worst record in baseball” odds for this team.

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Oakland Athletics

Best Bet: Win Total Over

Sean Zerillo: After losing 112 games last season, the public projection (range 63-71) loves the Athletics to bounce back in their likely final season in the Bay Area. Although I'm only slightly optimistic about the A's (projected 59 wins), the composite projection would recommend the Over up to 59. You can find as low as 56.5 — which I'm much more comfortable with.

Oakland played much better in the second half of 2023 (25-45; 57.8 win pace), and its pitching (5.17 xFIP; 30th in MLB) should be better in 2024.

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National League East

Atlanta Braves

Best Bet: To Win World Series

Sean Zerillo: While the public projection (range 95-101) likes the Under on the Braves' win total, it still shows value in their odds to win the NL East, make the playoffs and win the World Series.

The divisional and playoff odds are somewhat prohibitive; still, there is a significant edge between -537 (84.3% implied) projected and listed odds of -240 (70.6% implied).

I prefer to bet the Braves to win the World Series at this stage. Public projections put them as low as +475 (17.4% implied) and as high as +288 (25.8% implied); you can get +650 (13.33% implied) at bet365. Atlanta was +250 at the start of the playoffs last season.

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Philadelphia Phillies

Best Bet: Bryce Harper's Home Run Total Under

Brad Cunningham: This all comes down to whether or not Bryce Harper can stay healthy. While he missed time last year due to Tommy John surgery, he still ended up playing 126 games, yet only hit 21 home runs. He went over 30 home runs in 2019 and 2021, but this is someone who has had 14 different injuries since the beginning of 2021.

Additionally, he’s not much of a home run hitter anymore. His exit velocity and launch angle have dropped considerably since he hit 35 home runs in 2021. His fly ball percentage has also seen a steep decline. In 2019 and 2021, when he hit over 30 home runs, his fly ball percentage was around 37%, while last year it dropped all the way down to 30%.

This doesn’t mean Harper is a considerably worse hitter — it just means he’s not the home run hitter we once knew. Composite projections have him at 28.4 home runs, so there is value in taking Under 30.5 home runs.

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New York Mets

Best Bet: Win Total Over

Jim Turvey: For Mets fans, this is not me saying to get your optimism through the roof again, but last season was just about the worst-case scenario. Now, the Mets didn’t connect on any of their mega-targets this offseason, but instead loaded up on depth. The front office brought in hordes of serviceable Major League players just a year after falling flat on its face, in part because of lacking such depth.

The Mets were also notably unlucky last season, with a BaseRuns win total of 79 compared to their real win total of 75. Considering they were fresh off a 101-win season, I'm also expecting them to land in between those two extreme outcomes.

Steve Cohen is also never going to be shy about making moves to keep his team in contention, if they give him even a sliver of a reason to do so. Last season was unique in that they had two much older pieces to flip at the deadline, when they were already 18 games out of the division.

In a standard season, these Mets are far more likely to be buyers than sellers. That, combined with a roster that ranks 11th by FanGraphs projected WAR, has me buying on a team that just needs to get to .500.

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Miami Marlins

Best Bet: To Make The Playoffs – Yes

Sean Zerillo: The Marlins overachieved more than any team last season, finishing nine wins better than expected based on run differential. And if you flip the result of every one-run game, they would have finished 64-97, a 20-game difference.

Public projections still expect them to take a step forward compared to expected results from last season (range 77-81), but there's no value in the win total market.

Instead, I like the Marlins to make the playoffs (projected +216, listed +300), compared to projections as low as 29.3% (+241 implied) and as high as 34.3% (+192 implied).

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Washington Nationals

Best Bet: Win Total Under

Sean Zerillo: The Nationals also overachieved by both run differential (+4 wins) and performance in one-run games (+7 wins) last season. Additionally, I project them as a worse team in 2024 than in 2023, and PECOTA (projected 61.4 wins in 2023, 57.8 in 2024) agrees. Davenport and FanGraphs have the exact preseason expectations for this team compared to last season (65-66 wins).

Regardless, all projections fall below Washington's listed win total, and I project the Nationals for the fewest wins in the National League and the second-fewest wins in baseball.

Washington's Under doesn't satisfy the public projection, but it is the most significant outlier compared to my projection. Bet the Under to 68.

Additionally, I like the Nationals to finish with the fewest wins in baseball in 2024, since they are fourth or fifth on the odds board, depending on the book. Take +1000 or better on that prop.

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National League Central

St. Louis Cardinals

Best Bet: Sonny Gray's Strikeout Total Under

Brad Cunningham: This line is way too high for Sonny Gray.

If he is going to hit this over, two things have to happen. First, he is going to have to stay healthy and start 30+ games, which he has only done once 2019. He's had a history of injuring his hamstring multiple times and left his most recent spring training start with hamstring tightness, which is not a good sign.

Secondly, if he's not going to pitch every available start, he has to maintain a 10+ K/9 rate like he did when he was with the Reds. The problem is he's now gone two straight seasons of having under a nine K/9 rate with the Twins. Most projection models even have him closer to an 8.5 K/9 rate.

The reason for his drop in K% from his time in Cincinnati is that he's almost abandoned throwing his sinker, which is the pitch that generated his highest percentage of strikeouts from 2019 to 2021. He's now basically only relying on his sweeper to get all of his strikeouts. It's a fantastic pitch that generates a 41.3% whiff rate, but it accounted for 106 of his 184 strikeouts last year.

The chances of Gray staying healthy for a full season and increasing his K/9 rate up above nine is pretty slim, so I like the value on his Under 170.5 strikeouts.

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Chicago Cubs

Best Bet: Justin Steele's Strikeout Total Under

Brad Cunningham: Justin Steele had a breakout season in 2023 and had 176 strikeouts on his way to almost winning the NL Cy Young, but for him to hit 176 strikeouts again is going to take a lot of things going in his favor.

Steele has been above a K/9 rate of 9.0 in his two seasons as a full-time starter in the big leagues, but every single projection model has him regressing below that mark this season. Steele only throws two pitches primarily, a fastball and slider. That can become a little too predictable as a starting pitcher even if Steele is able to change his arm angle to throw a couple of different kinds of fastballs.

He's also not that overpowering of a pitcher. His fastball only averaged 91.8 mph last season with a slider that did a decent job of getting swings and misses. He's more of a ground ball than a strikeout pitcher, which is indicated by his 50% ground-ball rate last year and being only in the 33rd percentile for whiff rate.

All of this is not to say Steele is a bad pitcher, there is just going to be some natural regression as a soft-tossing lefty who over performed a lot of his expected metrics. So, 175.5 strikeouts is way too high, as his composite projection is at 163.2.

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Cincinnati Reds

Best Bet: To Win NL Central

Collin Wilson: Ownership and management of the Cincinnati Reds did not expect the team to blossom as fast as it did in the 2023 season. While no major contributors were added to the team, the Reds made considerable moves in December with productive role players.

The rotation of Hunter Greene, Graham Ashcraft and Nick Lodolo are all expected to improve from their high-ERA and injury-plagued seasons. Infielder Matt McLain will return to a lineup after a stellar rookie season, only to be in the shadows of Elly De La Cruz.

Cincinnati won 82 games a season ago, a number Davenport and ZIPS expect the Reds to repeat. In a division with contenders that have plenty of questions, the Reds may be the biggest investors at the trade deadline for a division and playoff push.

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Milwaukee Brewers

Best Bet: Win Total Over

Sean Zerillo: The Brewers never rebuild — they only reload. And despite a potentially wonky starting rotation, Milwaukee is the projected top defensive team in the league and has the best bullpen in baseball. The Brewers should continue to excel at run prevention, even if they deploy their pitchers a bit more unorthodox than other teams.

I would bet the Brewers' Over to 79 — at nearly a four-win differential compared to my projection and nearly a three-win differential compared to the composite projection.

Additionally, even the public projection (range 79-81) sees value in Milwaukee to make the playoffs (projected +214) and to win the NL Central (projected +456), with the most optimistic forecasts sitting at +185 and +388, respectively. And I'm more optimistic about the Brewers than the public projection market.

Considering the potential that their division-mates continue to add, I will only play Milwaukee's Over and divisional odds for now, but may add the playoff bet closer to Opening Day.

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Pittsburgh Pirates

Best Bet: To Win NL Central

Collin Whitchurch: This is mostly a bet against the other teams in the NL Central than it is a bet on the Pirates.

No team in the division projects to win more than 85 games in the NL Central this year. One likely will, but there isn’t an obvious candidate among the Cardinals, Cubs, Reds or Brewers.

Thus, I think it’s worth taking a stab at the Pirates in the +1500 range. There’s nothing overly impressive about this roster, but it’s a lot more competent than we’re used to seeing in Pittsburgh. There’s superstar potential in Oneil Cruz, and solid big-league regulars around the roster in the likes of Bryan Reynolds, Ke’Bryan Hayes, Jack Suwinski and more.

The rotation is obviously a huge question mark, particularly if the Pirates hold down talented hurlers Paul Skenes and Quinn Priester for service-time reasons, leaving a dearth of talent behind Mitch Keller.

But there’s a little bit of upside here — enough that I’m willing to take a flyer against the other unimpressive teams in this division.

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National League West

Los Angeles Dodgers

Best Bet: Yoshinobu Yamamoto To Win NL Cy Young

Sean Zerillo: Spencer Strider deserves to be the National League favorite for Cy Young. The mustachioed maestro projects as the league leader in both total WAR and average WAR per inning pitched and third by both strikeout rate and pitch modeling metrics.

He won't strike out nearly the same volume of hitters as Strider, but I project Yoshinobu Yamamoto as the second-best starter in the NL, and I viewed his fair odds closer to +1000. The 25-year-old should have elite command over a deep arsenal featuring a devastating splitter.

The only concern for Yamamoto is playing time (projection range 168-192 innings). The Dodgers plan to use a six-man rotation during parts of the season and may look to load manage their $325-million man.

Despite that concern, I'm also interested in backing fellow Dodgers Tyler Glasnow and Bobby Miller for the Cy Young. On a per-inning basis, Glasnow (121 Stuff+, 109 Pitching+) is about the closest you get to approximating Strider (125 Stuff+, 112 Pitching+), and the six-man rotation should permit Glasnow to toss a career-high in innings (projected range 125 to 154). Most pitchers need 200 innings to enter the Cy Young discussion; Glasnow is effective enough to enter the conversation at 150.

Miller is a safer volume bet than Glasnow and posted equally impressive pitch-modeling metrics last season (123 Stuff+, 110 Pitching+). I expect Miller's strikeout rate to eventually catch up to his velocity (averaged 99 mph, first among starting pitchers), but I'm not sure if he'll get enough innings to compete in 2024. Still, I'm willing to find out at 50-1.

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Arizona Diamondbacks

Best Bet: Corbin Carroll To Win NL MVP

Collin Wilson: Not many players can keep up with the production of Ronald Acuña Jr., as the Braves outfielder totaled 41 home runs and 73 stolen bases in 2023. In order to compete for the NL MVP, a player must have the toolset to post Acuña-like numbers.

Corbin Carroll is coming off a massive rookie season, leading the Diamondbacks to the World Series. The Seattle native has the highest raw power and speed combination from a scouting perspective, posting 25 home runs and over 50 stolen bags. Carroll is the one player on the NL odds board who can compete with Acuña not only in speed and power, but in defensive WAR as well.

With Shohei Ohtani unable to pitch in the 2025 season, a good time to bet a long-shot MVP future in the National League is this season. Look for Carroll's potential 30/60 season to challenge Acuña for MVP votes.

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San Diego Padres

Best Bet: Fernando Tatís Jr.'s Home Run Total Over

Brad Cunningham: This is a decent buy-low opportunity on Fernando Tatís Jr. after a down year in 2023. He obviously missed the entire 2022 season, so he was always going to naturally regress from hitting 42 home runs in 2021. His exit velocity and barrel rate numbers were down from 2021, but the encouraging sign was that he still maintained relatively high launch angles and was still in the 90th percentile for hard hit rate.

Another encouraging sign is Tatís is attacking the first pitch more. His first pitch swing percentage is up and he's swinging at a higher percentage of fastballs than he did in 2021, which is the pitch he hits the best.

Even the most conservative projections have him at 34 home runs and the composite is well above 36, so I am buying low on Tatís to hit at least 35 home runs.

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San Francisco Giants

Best Bet: Logan Webb's Strikeout Total Under

Brad Cunningham: Logan Webb cleared this number last season because he was an absolute workhorse, throwing 216 innings. The problem with him clearing this number again is he's not much of a strikeout pitcher, so you are essentially betting him to throw 200+ innings again.

Webb has consistently sat around an 8.0 K/9 rate, and he was in the 11th percentile for whiff rate and 44th percentile for K%. He is basically the definition of a ground ball pitcher, as his ground ball rate was at 62.1% last season. His three-pitch arsenal of changeup, sinker and slider are all designed to be down in the zone and all three of those pitches had around a 20% put-away rate last year, which is below the major-league average.

He would likely have to throw 203 or more innings to clear this number, which is going to be very difficult to do. The most optimistic projection has him for 178 strikeouts, so I think there is a lot of value in his Under.

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Colorado Rockies

Best Bet: Kris Bryant's Home Run Total Under

Brad Cunningham: Taking an Under for someone who is going to play half of their games in Coors Field is not the most appealing of bets, but Kris Bryant's home run total is a little inflated.

He's not the home run hitter you once knew in Chicago. Last season, he only was able to play 80 games, but he hit just 10 home runs. The problem is that his exit velocity and barrel rate are down across the board.

In the past, Bryant was an incredible fastball hitter and it's how he hit most of his home runs. In 2019 and 2021 — the last two seasons he hit over 20 home runs — about 60% of his home runs came off fastballs. Last season, he had just six homers off fastballs. In addition to that, his fly ball percentage is down about 7% from his peak in Chicago.

There is also the question as to whether or not he can stay healthy for a full season. Bryant has had a laundry list of different injuries over the last three years and is now 32 years old. He's projected to play around 130 games, and even if he gets there, his composite projection is 17.2 home runs, so there is some value in taking his Under.

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