Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com
One reported possibility that Major League Baseball is considering to get a 2020 regular season in during the coronavirus pandemic is all 30 teams playing in Arizona the entire season and without fans in attendance. The 10 Cactus League spring training sites are all very bunched together in the greater Phoenix area, plus there’s Chase Field.
Which team would benefit most from this setup? Obviously, the Arizona Diamondbacks – although MLB likely would have to essentially quarantine all players the entire campaign. Still, the Snakes would in theory have home-field advantage, especially in any games at Chase Field, and perhaps there is a way the players could remain with their families in some fashion.
Arizona had a good offseason in adding the likes of outfielder Starling Marte and starting pitcher Madison Bumgarner, but the Diamondbacks are +800 longer shots to win the NL West for the first time since 2011.
That’s not so much a reflection on the Diamondbacks but how loaded the seven-time West champion Los Angeles Dodgers are this season. At -900, the Dodgers are the biggest division favorites in the majors for 2020.
An argument could be made that four teams could easily win the NL East, with only the Miami Marlins (+15000) having no shot. How sad-sack are the Marlins right now? Forbes last week came out with its annual list of MLB team values, and the Marlins were the only club south of $1 billion and the only one that supposedly lost money in 2019.
Led by rising superstar Ronald Acuna Jr., perhaps the next Mike Trout, the Atlanta Braves (+175) are favored to win the NL East a third straight season. The Washington Nationals (+240) won the World Series last year as a Wild-Card team, the New York Mets (+300) already have lost No. 2 starting pitcher Noah Syndergaard to a season-ending injury, and the Philadelphia Phillies (+325) were favorites in spring 2019 to win the NL East but finished a disappointing 81-81.
The NL Central is like the NL East in that four teams could win it, with only the penny-pinching Pittsburgh Pirates (+8000) seemingly having no shot. The defending champion St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs are both +225 favorites. Those teams were to play two games in London in mid-June but that was canceled due to the coronavirus. The vastly-improved Cincinnati Reds (+250) could be the best value, and the Milwaukee Brewers (+325) remain dangerous.
