Arizona Diamondbacks Odds: MLB Win Totals, Projections, Possible Bets
Welcome to TheLines.com’s 2024 Spring Training preview of MLB odds. We’ll preview every team’s 2024 season with a focus on MLB win totals and World Series odds. We’ll evaluate each team’s roster and see if there are any wagers worth considering. Today, we’ll look at Arizona Diamondbacks odds.
The Diamondbacks got to the brink of what would have been one of the more unlikely title runs ever before getting rolled by the Rangers. They opted to mostly stand pat in the offseason, making only one major signing.
Will that be enough to keep them in the hunt in a top-heavy NL?
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Diamondbacks Odds: An Overview And What The Projections Say
First, let’s compare the market on Diamondbacks odds to publicly available projections from FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus.
- 2023 wins: 84
- Market wins: /
- FanGraphs wins: 83.9
- Baseball Prospectus wins: 84.7
Everyone predicting the future is aligned that the Diamondbacks are about an 84-win outfit, befitting their results last season. However, keep in mind that Arizona was quite lucky to reach the postseason. They had sequencing results more in line with an 80-win team, being outscored on the season by 13 runs.
The big addition was Eduardo Rodriguez, a solid if unexciting lefty, to supplement a pitching staff that was too thin to even find a fourth starter in their playoff run. Arizona also traded for slugging third basemen Eugenio Suarez.
Evaluating The Diamondbacks Roster
Bats And Defense
Things look well enough at the top for Arizona. Corbin Carroll is a superstar who should figure prominently in MVP conversations for the next decade. He has strong support behind him in Ketel Marte and Christian Walker.
The lineup thins out considerably after that, however. Nobody else really looks like a difference-maker unless Gabriel Moreno takes another step on both sides of the ball. The roster features several one-way players.
Joc Pederson still clobbers right-handed pitching but can’t provide anything in the field and sits against lefties. Suarez probably got lucky in the field last year — he’s likely to be a minus there while just providing OK offense as he can’t do much aside from sell out for power these days. Alek Thomas and Geraldo Perdomo play plus defense but they can’t hit.
The Dbacks should provide above-average fielding overall for their pitchers, but the cost looks like a below-average offense. Arizona produced a 97 wRC+ last year, which isn’t likely to cut it for an ostensibly contending team unless it brings top-level pitching to bear.
The wild card here will be whether top prospect Jordan Lawlar can ascend and provide a Carroll-like contribution. He has intriguing projections and tremendous tools. He’s considered a future star but struggled mightily last season in a tiny sample (32.4 K%), so the bat may not be ready.
Pitching
Diamondbacks pitching survived and then thrived in the postseason thanks to a few things.
One was the extreme durability of top two arms Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly. Gallen spent most of the second half as the favorite in Cy Young odds, and between the two, they combined for 64 starts and nearly 400 innings. That helped paper over a thin staff.
Brandon Pfaadt’s emergence after a pretty weak regular season as a viable No. 3 was also necessary. After 96 innings of 5.72 ERA ball (5.18 FIP), Pfaadt fired 22 innings with a 3.27 ERA and matching peripherals. Was it a small sample fluke or a sudden leap?
Rodriguez slots in as a strong No. 4 who brings serious durability to the table. After that, it’s anyone’s guess what happens.
Like Pfaadt, the bullpen performed far better in the playoffs than the regular season. This projects as a middling group overall. Paul Sewald and Kevin Ginkel form a decent duo at the back. The depth is just OK beyond that, but they’ll probably provide better than the 24th-place WAR they produced in 2023.
Possible Bets On Diamondbacks Odds
I’m concerned that the Diamondbacks are due for a fall in 2024. It goes beyond the fact that they had such good fortune in 2023.
Gallen and Kelly provided career seasons with extremely good durability. Most likely, we just saw the peak season each player will have in his career, especially Kelly, who heads into his age-35 campaign.
And while Pfaadt has the prospect pedigree, his weak regular season still came in a far bigger sample than his playoff shione. If he falters, there’s little acceptable depth in the minors/prospect ranks.
The bullpen also carried a lot of water in the postseason, and it’s not a particularly strong group.
The position players are uninspiring beyond the top three, and even there, I have questions. Carroll, Marte and Walker each notably outperformed his contact quality. And Marte came out of nowhere with a neutral defensive performance after years of negative contributions there.
Contrary to what a lot of people may think, this isn’t even a particularly young team, so I don’t think we can project a ton of internal improvement.
Basically, a lot of things went right for the Diamondbacks to produce a sequence-neutral 80-win season. Unless Lawlar explodes onto the scene as an immediate star, this looks like a roughly .500 ballclub to me. I’m taking some Under 84.5.
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