Astros Championship Odds on Favorite to Repeat

The Astros season is right around the corner, but for the bettors, how do they stand regarding another World Series title?

Now that the ink is dry and players are headed to spring training soon, it’s time to dive into the numbers and what better numbers to start with than the odds placed on the Houston Astros to win the American League West, American League Pennant and World Series.

Checking in over at WynnBet, the Astros are heavy favorites to repeat as AL West Champions coming in at -130. That translates to a 56.5% implied probability that the Astros will win the division for the fifth time in six seasons.

Even as constituted, without Carlos Correa signed, Lance McCullers Jr. likely on the shelf to start the season, Jake Meyers rehabbing and a 39-year-old Justin Verlander coming off Tommy John surgery, the Astros are still prohibitive favorites to win the AL West.

Perhaps that says more about Houston’s competition in the AL West than it does about the Astros, particularly the Texas Rangers, who committed somewhere around a half a billion dollars in the offseason to date and are given little better than 1 in 20 odds of winning the division.

Following the Astros are the Los Angeles Angels (+375, 21.1%), SeattleMariners (+550, 15.4%), Oakland Athletics (+700, 12.5%) and Rangers (+1750, 5.4%).

It’s not just the AL West.  While the odds aren’t nearly as one-sided, Houston is also favored to take the American League Pennant (+450, 18.2%), followed by the Toronto Blue Jays (+500, 16.7%), Chicago White Sox and New York Yankees (+550, 15.4%) and Tampa Bay Rays (+650, 13.3%).

The Astros come up short in the World Series odds though, as the Los Angeles Dodgers are odds on favorite at +650 (13.3%), followed by the Astros +900 (10.0%), Blue Jays +1000 (9.1%).

It should be noted that these odds are set by the betting market and not necessarily what has, or is expected to, happen on the field. The intriguing part is to follow how these odds change as the current free agents sign, especially Correa who’s the biggest name left on the board at this point.

Outside of Correa, there are a slew of free agents that could play a role in a team getting over the hump and as we saw with the Braves last year, it’s not always the marquee names that can do just that.

Many believe the Astros will stand pat, evaluate their roster during the season and then make their moves closer to the trade deadline, which seems like the James Click thing to do.

That is a luxury most teams don’t have during the regular season, but one we’ve seen Houston take advantage of several times in recent memory.

A few days ago we were pondering 2022 without baseball at the Major League level.

Now, we’re pondering the potential of an Astros-Dodgers World Series.