Colorado Rockies: A look at the early Vegas odds of a 2019 World Championship

The 2018 World Series just ended on Sunday night with the Boston Red Sox defeating the Rockies rival, the Los Angeles Dodgers, who lost their second straight World Series, in five games. Less than a day after the conclusion, Vegas already had their odds on next year.

Even though the World Series just ended in the Los Angeles Dodgers being defeated for the second straight season, this time by the Boston Red Sox and the next World Series is a year away, it doesn’t mean that Vegas betting doesn’t stop as they already have their early odds on the World Series in 2019.

In my opinion, they actually have the Rockies higher than expected as some publications always lowball the Rockies, like Baseball Prospectus, who predicted the Rockies would win 78 games in 2018.

However, if you were to build the postseason picture on the odds for winning the World Series, the Rockies would not be in the playoffs as they are tied for 12th best with their odds at winning the 2019 World Series at 30-1 (make sure you look at the odds, not the rankings of the article’s author’s opinion).

The most peculiar thing to me is the teams that they are tied with. One of the teams is very understandable. That’s the Oakland Athletics. The A’s were an underrated team all season long but ended up winning the second AL Wild Card spot with a 97-65 record.

The other team the Rockies and A’s are tied in with the odds is most mind boggling to me: the New York Mets. The A’s and Rockies both made the playoffs and won 90+ games. The Mets went 77-85 and, quite frankly, probably should have been worse as they had one of the worst offenses in the NL but Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard helped them out a lot on the pitching front.

They don’t have a center fielder (still after about what seems like five years of playing guys that don’t belong there). Quite frankly, the only thing they really have on the position player front is good outfielders that should be in the corners in Brandon Nimmo and Michael Conforto, overpaid and underperforming veterans like Jay Bruce and Todd Frazier, and injured goods in Yoenis Cespedes (I’m not kidding. Check out their depth chart and their 2018 stats. That’s about all they have.).

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Granted, they do have the means to a team that makes a few splashes on the trade or free agent front this offseason but with their owners, I wouldn’t expect it. Just look up “Mets Wilpon’s poorly run” on your favorite search engine and you will be flooded with thousands and perhaps millions of columns on how public perception of the Mets owners is poor.

One of them that you’ll probably find is from our colleagues at Rising Apple from May in this article about the Wilpon family, the Mets owners.

The A’s and Rockies, as mentioned won 90+ games and both made the playoffs this past season and have a very good chance at making again in 2019…but they are tied with the Mets.

In the NL, Vegas has the Phillies, Nationals, Cardinals, Brewers, Braves, Cubs, and Dodgers as better than the Rockies. At worst for the Rockies, I would only have the latter four in there ahead of the Rockies…and those were the four other NL playoff teams in 2018. And quite frankly, I’m not sure if I’d have all four of those teams’ chances better than the Rockies.

Obviously, the odds will change throughout the offseason as trades and free agent signings happen as well injuries (particularly the season ending ones) but it’s interesting to see where the Rockies are viewed at a national level.