Back when the World Series odds for 2015 first came out, the Chicago Cubs looked like a team on the upswing only to a handful of third party observers. Hardcore fans – the ones who knew financial flexibility was on the way, and who liked what they were seeing in August and September – were already well aware. And that’s why those 50-1 odds, the 7th worst in baseball, looked like a pretty darn good bet. It’s not like I thought the Cubs would win it all in 2015 – that, as a yes/no question, would be a pretty stupid position to take with respect to any of baseball’s 30 teams – but those odds were just way, way off.
The Cubs then added Joe Maddon, and the resultant hype (plus all the action the bookmakers were probably taking on that miscalculated 50-1 line) pushed the odds down to 33-1 and then to 20-1. At that level, I’m not so sure the Cubs would be a great bet.
And now, with a week of activity, including bringing Jason Hammel back, trading for Miguel Montero, and, of course, signing Jon Lester, the Cubs’ odds are dropping again.
As David Purdum writes, the Cubs’ 2015 World Series odds are now just 12-1, which puts them among the top seven teams in all of baseball. They are behind only the Dodgers, Nationals, Tigers and Angels, and are tied with the Orioles and Cardinals.
That’s fantastic in a completely superfluous kind of way, but I’ll warn you now that it’s a terrible bet. I think the Cubs will continue to improve the team for 2015, but, even if they enter the season as a behemoth on paper, I’m not sure I’d want to take 12-1 on any baseball team at any time. The playoffs, as we say, are simply too much of a crapshoot – even if your bet makes the playoffs, from there, they probably have just a 1 in 10 chance of winning it all, no matter how good they are on paper.
In any case, the point of all of this is not to give you betting tips, because, really, I have no idea what I’m talking about. Instead, the point is to reiterate that the Cubs Hype Train is chugging along. It’s been a great week of moves for the Cubs, and a great offseason overall so far. Like having the top farm system, a great offseason, alone, doesn’t win you any games. But things look increasingly bright for the Cubs in 2015, and it sure is fun being on this side of things for the first time in a long time, eh?