The 2024 World Series is still a little more than a week away, but it’s never too early for baseball bettors to be thinking of winning angles.
There is plenty of hard data to analyze and numbers to crunch for oddsmakers to set their lines, and just the same for baseball bettors to evaluate before making their wagers.
However, it is often the intangibles that can’t be precisely measured – the X factors – that end up deciding a single game or an entire World Series.
Plenty of Star Power to Go Around
As individuals, Aaron Judge nor Juan Soto qualify as potential X factors. Together, however, they combine to become a Dos Equis factor in whether or not the New York Yankees can finally come through in the MLB odds and win a World Series.
It won’t take both to make it happen, but that doesn’t mean New York can win it without one or the other. Judge and Soto simply have to come through in key situations to take pressure off the starting pitchers and relievers.
The Big Apple has a second team in the mix, and the New York Mets have their own pair of key bats that must fuel the lineup. Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso certainly showed they could do just that in the NLDS win over the Philadelphia Phillies.
Jose Ramirez and Josh Naylor make up Cleveland’s dynamic duo after combining to slug 70 home runs and drive in 226 during the regular season.
Los Angeles has its best two sticks at the tip-top of the lineup with Shohei Ohtani leading off for the Dodgers and followed by Mookie Betts. The ultimate X-factor showdown would be Judge/Soto vs. Ohtani/Betts.
Long Relievers Might Come in Handy
We know top sportsbooks give a lot of weight to starting pitching matchups, along with the top relievers who get into the action beginning in the seventh inning. But it just might be a bulk reliever that plays a key role in his team winning a World Series.
That task for Cleveland could ultimately fall to Joey Cantillo. The southpaw from Hawaii started eight games for the Guardians this season, topping out at 99 pitches in one outing.
Lefty David Peterson is the long man for the Mets after making 21 starts this season. Luis Gil and Marcus Stroman could get the call to work several innings from the Yankees’ relief corps.
Jack of All Trades Could Prove Crucial
A few years ago, Howard Megdal penned a piece for fivethirtyeight.com about how teams were beginning to employ some of their best players all over the diamond, and seeing big benefits in many cases.
Having a player capable of performing at multiple positions is nothing new to baseball, but it does seem to be experiencing a renaissance in recent seasons. Back in 2017 during their World Series run, the Houston Astros used Marwin Gonzalez as their jack of all trades, from all four infield positions to the two outfield corners.
Los Angeles used their Mr. Everything at three different spots in the 9-0 whitewashing of the New York Mets in Game 1 of the NLCS on Sunday. Kiké Hernandez started the contest in centerfield, moved to second base in the seventh, then shifted to third in the eighth. Hernandez also played first, short, left and even pitched in four blowouts during the regular season.
For the Mets, Jose Iglesias (2B-3B-SS) fills the versatile bill, and New York also put Jeff McNeil (2B-OF) on the NLCS roster after he suffered a fractured wrist in early-September.
The Yankees have Oswaldo Cabrera carrying extra gloves for the postseason. Cabrera worked at all four infield slots during the regular season, plus the outfield corners. David Fry, the hero of Cleveland’s Game 4 win over the Detroit Tigers in the ALDS, maintains an assortment of leather with a catcher’s mitt, another for first base, one for third and another for the outfield.
None of those four players may come up with the hit to win Game 7 of the World Series, but their flexibility could still prove very valuable.
Umpires & Mother Nature
Though not nearly as important as the starting pitchers, bullpens and which batters are streaking or slumping, every bettor knows all too well that umpires can be huge X factors for a given game.
We can expect MLB to announce the World Series crew roughly 24 hours before the start of Game 1, and that announcement will likely be accompanied by the umpire rotation for the contests. Though not a guarantee, there’s a good chance the umpires selected for the 2024 World Series will include some from the LDS round.
The four crews from this year’s ALDS and NLDS games were headed up by Dan Bellino (18-14-2 O/U/P), Mark Carlson (14-17-1), James Hoye (14-16-2) and Todd Tichenor (19-14-1).
Weather can be more like the X Files instead of an X factor, but it is still the first and last thing baseball bettors look at before making their MLB picks. Three of the four teams remaining in the playoffs call northern climes home, meaning there’s a good chance one of the World Series games includes temps in the 40s.
Even games in Los Angeles, where nice weather is the norm, can be affected. It only takes it being 2-3 degrees warmer than the previous day to turn the tide in favor of the hitters.
