The Braves may be baseball's top team, but they are not the best bet to win the World Series

This is an article version of the CBS Sports HQ PM Newsletter, the ultimate daily sports gambling guide. .

Now for a peak into the crystal ball.

🔥 The Hot Ticket

The Pick: Tampa Bay Rays to win World Series(+600): Well, we don't have any live sports to bet on. At least, not any sports I have the slightest idea how to bet. I was ready to take a shot at some WNBA action, but the league is on its All-Star Break, so those plans went out the window.

Thankfully, we can always bet futures. MLB will resume play on Friday, and the postseason can be seen off in the distance. One team I fully expect to be there are the Rays, who began the season 13-0 and entered the break at 58-35. It's the best record in the American League, yet, when you look at World Series odds, the Rays rank third behind the Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers.

I'm not an astrophysicist, but I'm pretty sure only one of those two can reach the World Series, let alone win it. Meanwhile, the Rays are the best team in the American League and the favorite to win it.

Even though they play in the best division in baseball -- the Red Sox are in last place in the AL East with a record that would have them no worse than third in any other division -- they've been the best team in the division, and played well against the division, going 17-10. Their run differential of +149 is 101 runs better than the next best team in the division (Baltimore, 48).

They're pretty dang good! And while they don't have the money to spend that other teams do, the Rays are pretty savvy about mid-season trades to improve soft spots in the roster. I anticipate they'll do the same this year before the trade deadline.

💰The Picks

⚾ MLB Future

The Pick: Baltimore Orioles to miss the playoffs (+240) -- We're sticking in the AL East for our other MLB future, but while our Rays bet was optimistic, this one is on the other end of the spectrum. The Orioles have been one of the pleasant surprises of the 2023 season. They're 54-35 and two games out of first. However, given the financial firepower of teams behind them in the division and what I expect to be some reluctance on Baltimore's part to trade away future pieces for a short-term gain, I wonder if they'll be able to hang on in the second half.

To be clear, I think the Orioles reach the playoffs about 60% of the time, meaning they miss out 40% of the time. However, the implied odds of +240 means we only need the Orioles to miss the postseason 29.4% of the time. That's a lot of value I can't pass up!

The Pick: Arizona Wildcats Under 5 Wins (-150) -- Win Totals season has begun on The Cover 3 Podcast, and this week we've gone over our win total projections for the Pac-12. You can check out both episodes here if you like, but of the 12 teams we discussed, this one is my favorite play. However, it's also a play that pains me to make.

I've been on the Arizona train for a couple of seasons now. In 2021, the Wildcats finished 1-11 in Jedd Fisch's first season, but they played hard the entire year. You don't see that much at the end of a lost season, and it's a good sign for the future. So I took the over on Arizona's win total in 2022 and was rewarded with a 5-7 season. Unfortunately, I have to bet the other way this season. Some of Arizona's top talent was poached in the transfer portal, and the team's 2023 schedule is a beast. The way I see things, a push is our worst-case scenario making this bet.