The MLB season is coming down to the stretch run in the final two months of the regular season, and there are multiple teams you can picture winning the Fall Classic.
On the FanDuel Sportsbook, a National League team is the current favorite to win the World Series at -114, while the American League isn’t far behind at -102.
If you look at the best records in MLB, the Los Angeles Dodgers are quietly gaining steam and running away with that claim, boasting the top record at 76-33. Slightly behind the powerhouse Dodgers are the New York Mets, who sit at 72-39 on the campaign. With a recent troublesome stretch of 10-17 baseball over their past 27 games, the New York Yankees have fallen to the third best record in the league, sitting tied with the Houston Astros at 71-40. Rounding out the top five are the defending World Series champion Atlanta Braves at 65-46.
With the structure of baseball and its playoff system, it’s not always the best regular season team that is the last one standing, but the one that gets hottest at the right time. Look no further than the Atlanta Braves last season, so it’s far from a guarantee that any of these five teams will win the World Series in 2022.
Knowing that you’ll likely be looking at the top teams in the league when trying to find a World Series winner is a natural way to approach this conversation. However, you should still know the playoff clubs that are lower seeds at the moment. The Wild Card teams that have the potential to do damage could help create some value with which league is ultimately crowned champions at the end of the year.
The Toronto Blue Jays are a wild-card in this conversation, and not only because they own the top Wild Card seed. With the Jays’ talented roster and the potential for Alek Manoah and Kevin Gausman to form a top-end one-two punch in the playoffs, the sky is the limit for this team. If Jose Berrios can get back on track, there’s no reason the World Series can’t fly North of the border this fall.
The San Diego Padres are a team to watch on the National League side of the bracket after their trade deadline additions. Can they put things together and defeat a juggernaut like the Los Angeles Dodgers? That’s hard to predict, but even if they don’t, the NL gauntlet might be a tad more difficult than the AL come the postseason.
The price for either an AL or NL team to win the World Series each has merit. Still, the National League has more to like, with the Dodgers, Mets, Padres, and Braves all looking dangerous. Siding with the NL’s -114 odds makes a lot of sense.
