MLB Team Win Totals to Fade in 2024 Season (Fade World Champion Rangers)
While free-agent deals are still being made with Spring Training underway, in large part we know what most MLB teams will look like once the regular season begins.
Add in the fact that win totals are now widely available and bettors have an opportunity to take advantage of market inefficiencies and public perception in betting these totals prior to the regular season beginning.
One such inefficiency is the fact that books generally assign more combined wins than possible between all 30 teams, indicating a slight advantage on unders, if a bettor can identify the right bets.
Here are three teams to consider when searching for teams that may struggle to meet their preseason win totals.
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Best MLB Regular Season Win Total Bets
Texas Rangers UNDER 88.5 Wins
The Rangers front office accomplished what they set out to do, bringing the Dallas Metroplex a World Series title.
In the process, they also saddled their franchise with expensive, long-term contracts that will likely hurt the Rangers for the foreseeable future, including in 2024, as they apparently don't have room to re-sign free agent Jordan Montgomery.
The lineup will still mash, but Texas' rotation is closer to Oakland's than the Astros and Aroldis Chapman is in Pittsburgh.
Fangraphs sees the Rangers struggling to stay above .500 at 82-80 and that seems a tad low to me, but on the other hand, this team with Montgomery, Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer for part of the season only won 90 regular season games.
The oddsmakers agree a repeat is a longshot and unless something unexpected happens, none of those three will even begin the season on the Rangers active roster, leading me to the under.
Miami Marlins UNDER 78.5 Wins
The Marlins ended 2023 as the team with most wins over expected in my rankings at 4.40, so they were a candidate for regression in 2024 even before the offseason began.
This team made their living off of one-run games, going an incredible 33-14 in those contests last season.
Needless to say, that will be difficult, if not impossible, to repeat and as evidence, I provide the 2022 Marlins who went 24-40 in one-run games.
The recent signing of Tim Anderson fills a hole, but that doesn't completely compensate for the loss of Jorge Soler and David Robertson, along with the Sandy Alcantara injury.
Detroit Tigers UNDER 79.5 Wins
After surprising and winning 78 games in 2023 the Tigers have been bumped to a 79.5 win total in 2024.
Losing Eduardo Rodriguez, his 13 wins and 3.0 fWAR is no joke and the Tigers signed Kenta Maeda and Jack Flaherty in response.
Betting on the Tigers to win 80 games is a bet on a core of young players continuing to progress linearly and that rarely happens, especially when multiple young players need to have breakout seasons for the Tigers to reach this number.
The Tigers were third in my rankings with 2.62 wins over expected and their run differential placed them at 73 wins last season, making A.J. Hinch's team a regression candidate.
Odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.