Baseball doesn't have the gambling market that football does, but that doesn't mean the sport's entirely devoid of some fun opportunities to either win some dough with your acumen and luck, or to look wistfully at the missing digits in your bank account come October.
Vegas is darn hard to beat. If it wasn't, Vegas simply would be a rather boring desert town instead of the symbolic representation of glitz and glamour. If you win your bets 50 percent of the time, you're losing money, but if you're one of the lucky few to consistently win 54 to 55 percent of the time, you're probably pleased with the number of commas on your monthly statement.
So here's your opportunity to either win or lose money along with me, as I use the ZiPS projection system to help pick my favorite team bets going into the 2013 season. I won't provide any Super Diamond Extra Plus Premium Ultra Mega-Lock Picks while wearing a bad plaid jacket from the 1970s and gaudy pinkie rings, but I can promise that at least we'll suffer misfortune together.
We'll look at team prop bets today and then come back with a look at individual props once Vegas issues a full list.
Arizona Diamondbacks
The wager: Over 81½ wins
Fellow stat-nerds may secretly revoke my membership in a dark, 3 a.m. meeting, but I think that Kevin Towers has done a better job, at least with the 2013 team, than a lot of people think. I'm not quite sure that the overall talent in return for Justin Upton was maximized, but Martin Prado is a really good player right now and he's a gigantic upgrade on Chris Johnson, now Atlanta's worst defender since John Bell Hood.
Cliff Pennington and eventually, Didi Gregorius, are better than you think, and Arizona's organizational depth of upper-level starting pitching gives them flexibility to deal with the season's inevitable nasty surprises. ZiPS has Arizona pegged for 86 wins, which gives it a great shot at the division. The Dodgers are a good team, but don't confuse payroll with invincibility.
New York Mets
The wager: Under 74½ wins
I love the future of some of the young players on the Mets, most notably Zack Wheeler, Matt Harvey, and Travis d'Arnaud, but only Harvey will make the team at the start of the season and while I think he's got amazing upside, he's likely a No. 3-type at this moment.
Otherwise, the team's neither that good nor that deep. The team will benefit from a healthier Ike Davis and the expiration of last year's idea that playing Jason Bay will make teams want to acquire Jason Bay, but that's balanced with the likelihood that David Wright will regress somewhat from easily his best year since 2008 and the loss of last year's Cy Young Award winner, R.A. Dickey.
If a lot goes right, the Mets could hit 75 wins, but the best bet is somewhere between the mid-60s and low-70s. (ZiPS currently has them pegged for 66 wins.) Jerry Orbach once said in an episode of "Law & Order:" "Love the Mets, but don't bet on them." Who am I to contradict one of TV's all-time great detectives?
Atlanta Braves
The wager: NL pennant, 7-to-1 odds
The Nats are a better team overall than the Braves, but Atlanta has a strong shot at being the No. 2 team in the NL and still retains a very good shot at the division (ZiPS has Atlanta at 37 percent to win the the NL East, compared to Washington's 49 percent).
If you're going to pick someone to punch about its weight class in the postseason, I'll put my cash on a team with a bullpen so unbelievably strong that you can't help but wonder if the team found some crazy loophole in the rules that baseball never noticed. Playoff teams are closely matched, after all, and closer games (on average) increases the value of a good bullpen.
Chicago Cubs
The wager: Over 73½ wins
The Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis Cardinals won't be sweating, but the Cubs do have enough talent on the roster and enough acceptable fill-ins that they could really surprise some people. Last season was likely Chicago's nadir as Edwin Jackson's rock-steady averageness was something the Cubs really needed in the rotation, and three-quarters of the infield (Anthony Rizzo, Starlin Castro, Darwin Barney) was solid.
Third base is still a hideous, ugly mess, but there's enough here to expect the Cubs to ascend from the bottom of the league to somewhere in that mediocre middle. ZiPS sees a 75-win team, and breakout candidates like Rizzo give the Cubs some upside.
Cleveland Indians
The wagers: AL pennant 30-to-1 odds; World Series 66-to-1
Everyone loves to take a flier on a long shot, so try to make yours the one with the easiest path to the playoffs. Anything can happen in October, after all. Every division other than the AL Central has two (or more) really solid teams, but Cleveland's home only has the Detroit Tigers. ZiPS has the Indians pegged as a .500 team, but the weak division means they have a 1-in-4 shot at eclipsing 85 wins. That would put them in the thick of the playoff hunt.
The Indians' offense is solid right now, without needing a bunch of happy surprises. The question is the pitching. When it comes down to it, if Detroit falters, it's worth gambling on pitchers who have shown dominant stuff, such as Ubaldo Jimenez and Justin Masterson. And there's still that X factor out there in Kyle Lohse -- the Indians have expressed that they're not interested, but he'd be an excellent fit and if his cost comes down as we approach Opening Day, it's something to keep in the back of your mind.