The time between Week 1 and Week 2 of the NFL regular season is ripe with overreactions. Who surprised in a good way? Who surprised in a bad way? And who are bettors and bookmakers adjusting too much in the futures market? One game of a 17-game NFL season accounts for 5.9-percent of the season. Ten games of an MLB regular season accounts for 6.2-percent of the year. So after most teams have played ten games entering Monday night, we’re pretty much at the MLB equivilaent of NFL Week 1 overreactions, and one is jumping off the page to us.
AL East Odds
Entering Monday night, the Toronto Blue Jays are +275 to win the AL East at the Barstool Sportsbook and BetMGM, and +280 at FanDuel. Let’s lay out some of the facts, then we’ll expand on them a little bit.
- They were +190 to win the AL East at BetMGM last week.
- They HAVE NOT PLAYED A HOME GAME YET.
- They went 6-4 on their ten-game roadtrip to start the season.
- They played the Angels and Cardinals, two teams that are widely expected to be quite good this year.
- The Tampa Bay Rays are 9-0, but have played the A’s, Nationals and Tigers.
So to reiterate, the Toronto Blue Jays started the season on a ten-game roadtrip. They played .600 ball against the favorites in the NL Central and the team with two of the best players on the planet. And they went from +190 to +275 to win the division. That’s nuts, and we’ll gladly jump in to try and take advantage.
The Red Sox, Yankees and Rays all opened the season with six home games, so the Blue Jays now have six home games sitting in their pocket compared to the rest of the division. Toronto will host the not-very-good Tigers beginning on Tuesday, followed by the Rays after that. There’s a chance that the Blue Jays could wipe out their 3.5-game deficit in the division by the end of the week.
We’ll admit that Toronto’s pitching has not looked great, but we’re talking ten (road) games out of a 162-game season. The offense is hitting .288 (No. 3 in MLB) with a .352 on-base percentage (No. 5) and a 118 wRC+ (No. 5).
The price adjustment here in the AL East was way too drastic. Tampa Bay might be really good, but let’s actually see it against some teams with a pulse and not against a collection of the worst teams in the league.
MLB Transactions
Have you seen the new GoldSheet MLB stat pages? Bookmark goldsheet.com/mlb-player-news for the latest MLB scores, stats, standing, and injury news.
