World Series odds 2023: Updated odds, predictions, picks, favorites as we near September

With the dust fully settled from the 2023 trade deadline, we’re getting a sense of the new landscape around the league as the we hit the sprint to the regular-season finish. Preseason expectations are out the window; gone are the days where teams and fans can preach patience over a long season. It’s now or never, and the playoff picture seemingly shifts every hour: The Mariners are looking like world-beaters after just sweeping the Astros in Houston, while the Dodgers have won nine of 10 and are challenging the Braves’ reign atop the NL; the Brewers had an impressive Texas sweep of their own against the Rangers, while seemingly no one else in the NL Wild Card race wants to actually make the postseason; the Rays and Red Sox have started righting the ship, while the Yankees ... well, they have not.

September is looming, which makes this is a great opportunity to take stock of where things stand according to the oddsmakers. So, just like we did right after the trade deadline, let’s take a look at how the past few weeks and have impacted each team’s World Series odds over at DraftKings Sportsbook.

Updated World Series odds as of August 21

With wins in nine of their last 10 games — combined with some (admittedly rather tiny) cracks in Atlanta’s armor in the second half — the Dodgers are now almost even with the Braves for shortest title odds. After that, things get bunched in a hurry: Oddsmakers don’t see a ton of difference among the major AL contenders, despite Tampa’s slew of injuries (and potential loss of Wander Franco) and the Astros and Rangers getting swept over the weekend.

The team that swept Houston, meanwhile, is the biggest mover and shaker here, as the Mariners now find themselves with the eighth-shortest odds overall and fifth-shortest among AL teams. They remain just narrowly ahead of the Twins, however, due to Minnesota’s easy path to a division title (and the easier postseason road that would create). Milwaukee remains a long shot despite solid play of late, likely due to skepticism about their offense supporting Brandon Woodruff, Corbin Burnes and Freddy Peralta, while the slumping Giants have plummeted all the way to +4000. Neither the Phillies nor Jays have inspired a ton of confidence with their play of late, but their talent is hard to ignore, as these odds show.

World Series odds: Takeaways and best bets

Seattle Mariners (+1800)

Maybe this is recency bias at work, but I’m struggling to explain the gap in odds between Seattle and the rest of the top AL contenders. This isn’t a flash in the pan at this point: The Mariners are an MLB-best 31-13 since the start of July, nearly two months of elite play, and Luis Castillo, Logan Gilbert and George Kirby can match up with anyone’s rotation in a postseason series. We saw their offense disappear last October, but if Julio Rodriguez can stay this hot for the rest of the season, Seattle might very well catch Texas for the division crown — and even if they don’t, they shouldn’t be viewed as substantially more flawed or less likely to come out of the American League than Astros and Rangers teams that have been pretty middling of late and come with tons of rotation questions of their own.

Texas Rangers (+900)

I know I just spent time knocking down the Rangers in the blurb above, but the NL is a two-horse race without a ton of juice, and Texas is still the team I’d take among the crop of AL favorites. Pitching questions abound — Can Nathan Eovaldi get healthy? Which Max Scherzer will we get come October? Will anyone else step up as a viable option? — but you could really say the same thing about Houston and Baltimore, and I’d give the narrow edge to the Rangers lineup as the deepest in the Junior Circuit. The rest of the long shots are simply too hard to trust right now — though Toronto is a bit tempting — so if you want something beyond chalk, Texas feels like the best bet to reach the Fall Classic.