Best 2026 MLB Futures Bets for the NL West

Welcome to the NL West where The Dodgers Are Ruining Baseball!

I’m kidding, or at least that’s not my actual opinion. They can clearly afford their monstrous payroll. But we are looking for bets here, and dare I say I have a bearish bet on LA? And a couple more ideas.

Anyways, here are my best future betting picks in the NL West.

Dodgers Under 102.5 Wins (+100 BetRivers)

Yes the Dodgers have assembled easily the best team in MLB. Fangraphs pegs them for 99.4 wins, which is about as high as you ever see by their metrics. 

I can’t make any sort of talent or numbers-based case on them failing to reach their number. It’s strictly about motivation, and no I am not suggesting any lack of effort. Rather it’s just about priorities. If the franchise set a goal of winning 120 games, they could probably accomplish that. But they clearly approach the 162 game marathon as a warmup to October, and the main goal is to get there as healthy as possible.

They use the IL liberally, especially with their pitchers. They’ve already announced Blake Snell will ramp up slowly and open the season on the shelf. Tyler Glasnow never makes it past 120 innings, and it's often considerably less. They rode Yoshi Yamamoto for 211 total innings last year and it paid off big time, but I expect them to really cut that back so he’s fresh for the playoffs. Shohei’s not getting an extensive workload either. These are all aces but that’s the point, the Dodgers don’t want to use too many of their bullets in the regular season.

Maybe I’m wrong here and they can’t help but win 110 games, but I like them to modestly underwhelm.

Padres Under 85.5 Wins (-110 DraftKings)

Ok in this case, this team is just not that good any more. I really loved how they spent their way out of mid market malaise and turned themselves into one of the top teams in the league the last few years. They were 1 win away from eliminating the Dodgers in the ‘24 playoffs!

But unfortunately it feels like the window has closed. The Padres can’t raise payroll any more and have no prospects left to trade. What they are left with is an extremely top heavy lineup and thin rotation. Their top 4 hitters, Xander Bogaerts, Jackson Merrill, Manny Machado, and Fernando Tatis Jr. all project for between 3.3 WAR (Bogaerts) and 5.4 (Tatis), but then it falls off a cliff after that. Jake Cronenworth is a nice solid major leaguer, but he has no business batting 5th on a playoff team. And so on.

As for the rotation, Nick Pivetta finally turned his always stellar metrics into actual production as he had 2.87 ERA and 0.99 WHIP with a 19.4% K-BB%. But he was a bit fortunate with a career low .235 BABIP and 9.7% HR/FB ratio. His xERA was 3.97. 

He’s the unquestioned ace right now as their only other top SPs are Joe Musgrove back after missing all of 2025 recovering from TJ surgery and Michael King re-signed and ostensibly healthy after making it through just 73.1 IP last year. Behind those 3 it is downright ugly as San Diego hopes they can turn a couple of Walker Buehler, Triston McKenzie, German Marquez, JP Sears and Randy Vasquez into something useful. All were downright awful last season.

Rockies Over 53.5 Wins (-110 DraftKings)

Yeah I have nothing nice to say about the Rockies. Well one thing; it feels like they will attempt to act like a 2026 MLB franchise now and incorporate analytics. They’ve hired Paul DePodesta of Moneyball fame. 

No, he will not produce any miracles overnight, or perhaps ever. But Colorado stands to improve a bit from their ghastly bad 2025 Brenton Doyle and SS Ezequiel Tovar showed major promise in 2024 and then regressed in 2025, in Doyle’s case it was a personal tragedy. I expect rebounds from both, and along with C Hunter Goodman (.278/.323/.520), Mickey Moniak (.270/.306/.518) and Jordan Beck (.258/.317/.416) that’s a reasonably solid top of the order. 

They added Jake McCarthy, who does not hit all that well but is a plus fielder with excellent range in the OF, and that could really help in Coors. No it won’t make their always terrible pitching turn into a pack of aces. And new additions Michael Lorenzen, Jose Quintana and Tomoyuki Sugano are all back end starters at this stage of their careers. But squint and maybe they can give the Rocks some desperately needed innings and keep them in more games. Yes this team will still be terrible, but I like them to improve to just “normal bad”