Oddsmakers label Blue Jays as favourite to win American League

TSN Baseball Insider

Archive

The oddsmakers are predicting a big year for the Toronto Blue Jays.

They are currently the favourites to represent the American League in the World Series with only the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League having better odds of winning it all. It is always great when the expectations are huge for a team and it is an acknowledgment of the talent level and readiness of a franchise to move from a competitive team to a championship-level team.  

I asked around Jays camp about these expectations and to a man they all said the same thing. They acknowledged that they are a good team with momentum after the last couple of seasons. It isn’t a World Series-or-bust mentality however.

The New York Yankees start off every season believing it will be a failure if they don’t win the championship. There is an arrogance to that which doesn’t recognize the quality of other teams. There is no arrogance in the Blue Jays clubhouse. Just confidence. Every member of the organization that I spoke with recognizes what a great division it is and how difficult will be to win it all. But they believe they can win it all.

The additions of Kevin Gausman, Matt Chapman, Yusei Kikuchi, Yimi Garcia, and Raimel Tapia have everyone enthused about Toronto. Other clubs I visited this spring rave about the Blue Jays and they respect the extraordinary young talent, depth and balance of the roster. It is not often that a team loses a Cy Young Award winner (Robbie Ray) and an MVP finalist (Marcus Semien) and excitement grows.  

Fans and the media like to focus on run production. And this Jays’ lineup is going to score a ton of runs. It is not nearly as exciting to talk about run prevention but Toronto has improved in that