Will the Los Angeles Dodgers win at least 105 games this year for the fourth time in the past five full seasons? Will the free-falling Oakland A’s show some improvement over last season’s 50-112 record? Is it likely the defending NL champion Arizona Diamondbacks won’t win 85 games this year?
Those are a few of the the questions currently facing sports bettors who are studying which Major League Baseball teams in 2024 will or won’t exceed the expected regular-season win totals that are posted on oddsboards at top online sportsbooks.
Last season 16 of the 30 squads went “over” their number in the 162-game season, including the Baltimore Orioles, who for the second straight year soared past their estimate by the greatest number of wins in the league.
Randy Blum, executive manager of risk at the Westgate Superbook, isn’t high on Baltimore continuing on that upward trend.
“We do expect the Orioles to possibly regress a little,” he said of last year’s top seed in the American League and champions of the East Division. “They have been hit by the injury bug early in spring training and it is a difficult division.”
And with regard to the Dodgers, who have always been a popular bet at sportsbooks, there hasn’t been much action at the Westgate with L.A. having such a high win-expectancy total of 104.5.
“The sharp guys have not been interested in the under,” Blum said, “and I think this number is high enough where it kind of scares off the general public players.”
BetMGM reported that its highest handle on “under” bets has come from the Dodgers (103.5), Orioles (90.5) and Miami Marlins (78.5).
On the other end at that site, the Kansas City Royals (73.5), Pittsburgh Pirates (74.5) and Detroit Tigers (81.5) have had the greatest “under” handle.
As for line movement, the biggest increases to date at BetMGM have been the Orioles going up from 87.5 to 90.5. Conversely, the Milwaukee Brewers had the greatest drop from the opening line to now, going from 78.5 to 76.5
And as a betting strategy reminder, for the second straight year clubs will not be playing division rivals 19 games apiece. These days there are only 13 such meetings.
Another facet of the game entering its second season are rules dealing with limited pickoff attempts and bigger bases that make stealing them easier. Those new elements played a big role in base runners having a record success rate of 80.2 percent on steal attempts in 2023, up from 75.4 percent in 2022.
Thus, teams with speed and/or who have catchers who throw out runners at a high rate are of utmost value. As an example, Arizona, winners of the NL pennant, had the second-most steals in the majors last year with 166.
More MLB futures betting: American League MVP odds | National League MVP odds | AL Cy Young odds | NL Cy Young odds | MLB stolen base leader odds
MLB regular season win total odds for all 30 MLB teams
Here are the latest OVER/UNDER win totals for 2024 from the best U.S. online sportsbooks:
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MLB teams forecast to go OVER 2024 win total predictions
Philadelphia Phillies (consensus forecast of 89.5 wins; 2023: 90-72)
Oakland Athletics (consensus 56.6 wins; 2023: 52-110)
A pair of teams on far different trajectories — the Phillies going up and up and the A’s going down, down, down — have been drawing a lot of interest at the SuperBook, according to Blum.
“With us so far, we have taken the most over money on the Athletics (55.5 wins) and Phillies,” he said. “The Athletics money was by design. We positioned our number to invite over bets. We see no reason this will be a better team than last year. We are willing to take our chances that they will lose 100-plus games again.”
But even if the A’s were to lose as many as 106 games, they’d still score money for OVER bettors.
Continued Blum: “The Phillies money I think just comes from them being a popular public team right now. They have had a lot of success and have a lot of brand name players.”
For Philadelphia, a wild-card team that vanquished the NL East champ Atlanta Braves in quick fashion the past two postseasons, their win expectancy seems somewhat low. Especially since two-time MVP Bryce Harper will be available from the get-go and there might not be a better all-round catcher in the league than J.T Realmuto.
As for Oakland, the team has a lot of hungry no-name kids looking to keep their jobs. There’s probably not another team that will fight with all its might game after meaningless game.
Tampa Bay Rays (consensus 84.5 expected wins; 2023: 99-63)
The Rays’ expected win total matches their lowest on the preseason boards since 2019, a season in which they won 96 games.
This year only one other MLB team has a bigger win expectancy drop from last year’s victory total than that Rays at 14.5 games (Milwaukee had a 15.5-game drop). And that’s somewhat of a surprise since in six of their past seven seasons Tampa Bay has overachieved and exceeded their expected total — three times by more than 10 games.
And, sure, they traded star pitcher Tyler Glasnow to the L.A. Dodgers, but he was highly ordinary for Tampa Bay last year, especially down the stretch when he went 2-3 his final five games, including playoff loss to Texas, and had a 6.03 ERA.
The addition of ex-Cleveland righty Aaron Civale should help fill Glasnow’s void. Plus the Rays have last year’s AL batting leader in Yandy Diaz.
Los Angeles Angels (consensus 71.5 wins; 2023: 73-89)
In 2023, for the sixth-straight year, the Halos fell short of their expected win total, with last year’s number being 81.5. And those six straight years coincided with the years that two-time AL MVP Shohei Ohtani was aboard.
His free-agent departure to the L.A. Dodgers this offseason will surely leave a mark, but it’s not like he was ever close to helping this team get in the playoff mix. But if three-time MVP Mike Trout can play most of the season and be an inspirational leader to a group of relative unknowns, the Halos should at least threaten to be a .500 team.
MLB teams forecast to go UNDER 2024 win total predictions
Boston Red Sox (consensus 78.5; 2023: 78-84)
Star third baseman Rafael Devers said it well earlier this week when he commented that the Red Sox needed to do more in the offseason to jump-start a Boston team that just finished last in the AL East with a second straight 78-84 season.
They face a formidable hurdle in having to play 52 division games against fellow AL East squads that were a combined 94 games over .500 in 2023.
Of particular concern is the team’s defense, which tied for the second-most errors in the majors with 102. By comparison, the two teams that reached the World Series (Arizona and Texas) had the fewest.
And they have Lucas Giolito as their assumed pitching ace? He bounced around to three different teams last year and went 8-15.
Baltimore Orioles (consensus 90.5 wins; 2023: 101-61)
Two years ago the O’s had a league-low win expectancy of 62.5 and wound up surpassing that number Aug. 21 with still more than six weeks left in the season. Last year their win expectancy was 77.5 and they topped that by Aug. 23.
Not so fast this year, though.
The O’s indeed did make a key offseason acquisition in former NL Cy Young winner Corbin Burnes to head their staff but last week learned that 2023 pitching sensation Kyle Bradish has a UCL sprain that will have him on the IL to open the season. And lefty John Means also will miss early action with an elbow injury.
Arizona Diamondbacks (84.5 consensus wins; 2023: 84-78)
Arizona has the lowest expected victory total for a team coming off a World Series appearance since Kansas City in 2015 (80.5), but those Royals still went on to win the 2015 crown a year after losing in the Fall Classic to San Francisco.
Last season the Diamondbacks finished in a flourish by sweeping the Dodgers in the wild-card round, downing NL Central winner Milwaukee in the divisional round and then somehow overtaking the Phillies 4-3 in the NLCS by winning the final two games at Philly. Arizona then fell in five games to Texas in the World Series.
But in looking back at their regular season, they didn’t even qualify for the playoffs till the final weekend and went 32-39 after the All-Star break.
Even with RHP Zac Gallen and Rookie of the Year Corbin Carroll having exceptional seasons in 2023, it still wasn’t enough for the Diamondbacks to win 85 games.
