Do not let the odds fool you, this is a two horse race. The Diamondbacks are getting some love from Vegas, I think mostly because someone else needs to have some decent odds. They can't give three teams long shot odds for a division. Basically those Arizona odds are to save their own ass. There are two teams I feel have great value on that list even though I am not picking them to win the division.

 

 

The Winner: LA Dodgers

 

Only one can pay out so if you plan on betting on this division you better spread some coin over to the Dodgers even at -145. They struggled last year quite a bit missing the wild card by two games and losing to the Giants by eight. But they did not round into the team they have now until what ended up being too late. After they pillaged the Red Sox for their trouble makers they put together probably the strongest team on paper in the entire league. Not to mention them picking up Greinke from that other LA team.

 

But first we need to address their best player and a guy who might be ready to take the title of best pitcher in baseball from Verlander, Clayton Kershaw. If he did not get sidelined briefly with a hip injury last September he would probably be slated to be the top fantasy baseball pitcher and baseball is the one sport that the fantasy version of it directly translates to on field play. Being that it is a mostly individual game a players stats typically show how strong or weak they are. Kershaw has been a stud and he is still getting better. He is only 25 and is already in the conversation for the best in the world. Now you give him a full season of Gonzales, Kemp, Ethier, and Crawford (well probably not Crawford that guy is always hurt) Kershaw might not lose a game all season. He is going to have an ERA down around two and a WHIP down around one.

 

Surrounding him in the rotation is Greinke, Beckett, Billingsly, and Capuano all should be owned in every fantasy league. With an offense that is going to score, they now have two NL Cy Young contenders and two MVP contenders, Matt Kemp and Adrian Gonzales. But besides their studs the other starting pitchers they have are all solid. They just could not get enough run support to be successful last year. This year they will score plenty of runs. That means this team is going big. They are going to win well over 100 games as long as they do not show up for opening day on Josh Beckett's fried chicken, beer, and marijuana diet.

 

The one thing that could hold them back is their bullpen. They need a legit closer. Right now they have two guys that will be handling that duty. Right now they are going to roll with Brandon League as their opening day closer even after a rough Spring Training that saw him post a 7.88 era in 8.0 innings. But he is a ground ball pitcher. He induces three times as many ground balls than fly balls which is what you want out of your closer.

 

How far they go might come down to Kenley Janson. Tangent; We need to stop with these ridiculous names. Well we didn't like Kelly or Kenny so we went with Kenley, because we want to be “unique”. You are being idiots forcing your kid to have to correct people who pronounce his name wrong every time it gets said. Sorry I have written all these baseball previews and had to look back at how to spell so many names that I have never heard of before. Like Giancarlo. I know I already talked about him but it is still pissing me off. Your name is Mike. What is wrong with being named Mike? Michael/Mike is about as strong a name as you can have. Instead I am going to change it to Giancarlo? What the fuck is that? It makes me think you were trying to combine Gina and Carlos. Do you really think pitchers are going to fear a big bad Spanish-American chick?

 

Back to it... Janson is going to have to step up and become the full time closer for them to be World Series champs. The struggle is going to breaking through and upending League as the closer since the Dodgers just inked him for four years $27.5M. The job seems to be Janson's eventually so I am not sure why the Dodgers threw so much money at League. And I am not sure why they would give him the nod over Janson either. He has the second best strikeout ratio and K's per nine innings all time as of now to just Craig Kimbrel. This is a storyline worth following as it will likely decide if the Dodgers can actually win this division this year.

The Contenders: San Francisco Giants

 

They won this division last year despite being just mediocre really. In fact they won the World Series being mostly mediocre. When I say mediocre I mean for their talent level. They were never as good as they should have been. They just never gave up. They fell into an 0-2 deficit in the NLDS and a 3-1 deficit in the NLCS before rolling over the Tigers in the World Series. So they without a doubt have what it takes to beat the Dodgers and even enough to win another World Series.

 

That is why they are one of the two great value bets in this division. At +190 you are getting at the very least the second best team in the division but with a starting rotation that should be much better than they were in their World Series run last year.

 

They have a similar problem with the bullpen. If they can get solid play from them they can go a long way. But maybe more importantly they need Lincecum to get back to his elite status. They have the the most starting pitching talent top to bottom in the division they just need to live up to their value.

 

The ace in the hole is really Tim Lincecum. They need him to shake off the cobwebs and get back to his former self. He has struggled so far in Spring Training which is a really bad sign. But there is no possible way he can be as bad as he was last year. The Giants somehow managed to win 94 games with him going 10-15 with a 5.18 era and under 200 strikeouts for the first time since his rookie year. If he can manage to be just a mediocre version of his former self then they are light years better than they were a year ago when they won this division and the World Series. So yes, I really like them at +190.

The Rest: Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies, San Diego Padres

 

Here I will let you try and figure out why the Diamondbacks are 6-1 to win this division because I sure as hell can't figure it out.