Article courtesy OddsShark (@OddsShark)
A lot has happened in baseball since the Washington Nationals were crowned World Series champions on Oct. 30 of last year.
Most notably, three teams lost their managers in the wake of a massive sign-stealing scandal, while the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers have won the offseason so far by making two huge moves to improve their odds to win the 2020 World Series at sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.com.
The Yankees signed former Astros ace Gerrit Cole to a nine-year deal worth $324 million, helping themselves immensely and hurting one of their biggest rivals in the process. But Houston also took a big hit when manager AJ Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow were fired after it was revealed that the team was found guilty of stealing signs during the 2017 and 2018 seasons.
The result at sports betting sites was to boost the odds of New York to a +350 co-favorite (bet $100 to win $350) along with Los Angeles, and then drop Houston down to the +700 third choice.
The Astros have since hired Dusty Baker to replace Hinch, which is ironic considering he was fired by the Nationals before they made their historic World Series run in which the road team won all seven games for the first time ever.
However, Houston was not the only team to lose a manager – the Boston Red Sox and New York Mets also got caught up in the scandal because their former skippers Alex Cora and Carlos Beltran were part of the 2017 team.
Cora got the Boston job after that and helped his new team win the World Series the following year. Beltran was hoping to follow in his footsteps with the Mets, although he was fired before he even got started.
The Dodgers were victims against the Astros and Red Sox in losing the World Series to each of them in 2017 and 2018, respectively. The good news for Los Angeles is that the team recently completed a blockbuster trade with Boston for outfielder Mookie Betts and pitcher David Price, which helped make the team a no-brainer to be the National League favorite again in 2020.
The Nationals are still in the mix too at +1600 on the MLB odds to repeat as World Series champs, but they did lose All-Star third baseman Anthony Rendon to the L.A. Angels (+3000) on a seven-year deal worth $245 million.
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