MLB Betting Odds & Lines

Overview

The Major League Baseball regular season is composed of 162 games played during the year against the 30 teams in the league. Since 1903, MLB has been divided into two leagues, the American League (AL) and the National League (NL).

Both leagues signed a national agreement in 1903  to be combined under the MLB banner and start a championship title game known as the World Series, which has the best team of the AL face the best team from the NL.

While MLB has changed a lot over the years, with more teams and games being played now than back in 1903, it has still been a pastime sport that all Americans love and enjoy to this day.

MLB Playoff Format Throughout the Years

Back in 1903, there were no playoff games, as only the team with the best record in both the AL and NL would face each other in the World Series.

But when 1969 came around, MLB added a two-team playoff and split teams into two separate conferences within the AL and NL.

Both leagues got an Eastern Division and Western Division, with the team with the best record in each division facing each other in a best of five playoff game, with the winner advancing to the World Series.

The two-team playoff would last until 1994 when MLB changed the number of divisions in each league from two to three.

The change allowed the top team in each division to go to the MLB playoffs and added one extra team that had the best record in the league but didn’t win their division.

The format would remain in play until a new agreement changed the playoff format again for MLB.

In 2012, MLB added a one-game playoff between the two teams with the best record that didn’t win their division.

The winner of the one-game playoff would then face the highest-seeded division team in a best two out of three, while the other two divisional winners faced each other in the same format.

For 2022, there have been talks about altering the playoff format yet again.

MLB World Series

Baseball’s championship game, the World Series, puts the best of the AL against the best of the NL in a best out of seven series.

When the World Series first began in 1903, the World Series was the best out of nine series between the best AL and NL teams.

The format would go to seven in 1905; the two teams set to play the 1904 World Series never played due to the NL champion New York Giants’ refusal to play the game.

The World Series would go back to a best-out-of-nine format for three years from 1919 to 1921 before going back to the best-out-of-seven format in 1922.

Rivalry Games

Outside of the playoffs, some of the most exciting games are rivalry games that happen throughout the regular season.

The most famous rivalry game in all of baseball is that between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. The rivalry between the two teams has been around since the early 1900s and continues today.

While the two teams have forgone name changes in their early years, the rivalry has stayed with both teams through these years.

All-Star Game

MLB baseball has what is known as the All-Star game midway through the baseball season.

The game puts the best players from all the AL teams against the best players from all the teams in the NL in a one-game matchup.

The game was thought to have lost some of its lusters during the early 2000s, which prompted MLB Commissioner Bud Selig to raise the stakes for the game.

Starting in 2003, the winning league of the All-Star game would receive home-field advantage for the World Series, a move that was seen to help bring a competitive spirit back to the All-Star game.

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Baseball is the most exciting sport to bet on, as teams usually have between two to four-game series against their opponents throughout the baseball season.

Some cases can have a team sweeping all the games in the series or splitting the games in a series.

So with baseball games having the chance of giving a different outcome from one day to the next with the same opponent, gamblers have to study many things besides just the MLB odds.

Gamblers looking to bet on MLB games need to look at more than just the MLB lines, MLB odds, and MLB spreads if they want to find some teams that can help them get a winning bet.

MLB odds work closely to an NFL game, except the MLB spreads are based on runs, known as the run spread, instead of points like in the NFL.

There are three main options for gamblers to bet on MLB games that we will go over.

MLB Run Spread

In baseball, point spreads actually are called runlines, this essentially gives the underdog a slight head start before the game even begins, and puts pressure on the favored team to cover the spread.

The line will be set by our oddsmakers, and they will determine how many points they think the favored team will win by. They might set a line at -5.5/+5.5. Let’s say the Yankees are -5.5, they are the favored team, and the Diamondbacks are +5.5 and they are the underdog.

What this means is that the Yankees will need to win the game by more than 6 runs. If you decide to place that -5.5 bet, you aren’t betting on the Yankees to win by any margin – you are betting on them to win by more than six. If you think the game will be closer than that, or that the Diamondbacks will win, you should bet on the underdog +5.5. This means that the Diamondbacks can either win the game outright by any amount or lose by less than five runs.

The MLB spreads are usually adjusted based on which players are starting and out for the game.

The most significant thing you should look at is the bullpen and which players are available in each bullpen, along with the batting stats of players from both teams.

Bullpen players have a history of being either the pitcher that helps hold the lead or blows their team’s lead. Looking at a relief pitcher’s ERA can help with seeing if they are more prone to blow a lead or not.

Looking at the offensive bench players and their history against opposing pitchers would be something else that can help find out if one team can have a secret edge that has gotten overlooked.

Ensuring that a team can cover the run spread is essential to a winning wager, and if a bullpen has a history of giving up too many runs late in the game, your team might not cover.

MLB Moneyline

The moneyline is a straight-up bet on which team will be the winner. MLB odds for moneyline bets give the favorite negative odds, while the underdog gets plus odds.

With most MLB games being competitive, the moneyline odds can be a chance for gamblers to get better returns over making a run spread bet.

The same strategies that gamblers use on MLB spreads can be used here, as the gambler only needs an outright win.

Over/Under on Run Total

The last type of MLB odds to look at is how many total runs will be scored in a game.

The odds will be based on a total number of runs, with gamblers choosing to wager if the total runs will be over or under the number given.

For these types of wagers, gamblers will need to look at both the pitching and batting of both teams.

While the MLB odds are based on what oddsmakers think will be the total number of runs scored, they come to that number by looking at the average number of runs both teams score in a game.

Gamblers should look at what batters for both teams are on hot or cold streaks, along with the ERA of the starting pitchers and the bullpen pitchers.

These players will all be a part of and can be a factor in how many runs are scored.