MLB Baseball Betting
With $92 million waged on Super Bowl LXII, there’s only one thing hotter than sports betting: online sports betting. With online gambling expected to eventually be legalized and regulated in the United States, the number of online sports books is expected only to increase over the years.
In the meantime, there is no shortage of opportunities to wager this time of year, especially with the Major League Baseball season set to kick off in April. While sports betting odds for the season are sure to change in the coming weeks, here are a couple of possible dark horse teams to keep in mind when placing your 2008 baseball best:
Tampa Bay Devil Rays: This franchise has been nothing short of terrible since coming into the league in 1998, having reached 70 wins only once. However, with a new team name (simply the “Rays”) and new uniforms, this could be the year Tampa turns their fortune around. With young pitching stars James Shields and Scott Kazmir coming of age last season, plus 2nd year phenom Delmon Young, All-Star Carl Crawford, and a talented supporting cast, expectations are high for bigger things in 2008. A wild-card may be too much to ask for but this team could easily play a spoiler and approach or even surpass .500.
If you’re looking for another possible sleeper who might be overlooked, try the Seattle Mariners. This team, far removed from the East Coast spotlight, flew under the radar in 2007 and managed to reach a season-high 20 games above .500 in mid-August before fading down the stretch. Having added stud pitcher Erik Bedard to the mix, the Mariners, led by hitting star Ichiro Suzuki, could surprise teams again in a weak American League West.
Looking for betting odds to stay away from? Try the New York Yankees. With aging veterans and the nervous Hank Steinbrenner now in charge, this team is a shell of its former self. The jerseys are the same but the faces different with a group of unproven youth in the starting rotation, including Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy. The wheels have to fall off of this storied franchise sometime…this could be the year.
