MLB AL West Future Betting Picks: Totals, Pennant Winner, and More

It’s AL West Day today! These are our best season-long future betting picks for the American League West's top teams, including the Houston Astros and Seattle Mariners.

In 2025, the Mariners broke the Astros roughly 87 year lock on the division. And they look like pretty overwhelming favorites to repeat, at least according to Fangraphs which gives Seattle a 60% to take the crown, vs. 14.5% for both Texas teams.

Astros Under 86.5 Wins (-105 DraftKings)

OK I’ll bite, Fangraphs projects them for just 80.4 Wins. As it stands now, they have a mess of a roster that they need to sort out. 

Their best hitter Yordan Alvarez can fake LF for small stretches, but really has to DH. That leaves only 2 spots for Carlos Correa, Isaac Paredes and Christian Walker to divy up while Jose Altuve and his seriously declining fielding range has to man 2B. Oh and their likely starting OF of Zach Cole, Joey Loperfido and Jake Meyers are projected for 3.6 WAR combined, and nearly all of that is from Meyers glove. They’ve needed to flip Paredes for a corner OF all offseason, but they’re running out of time here. Bringing in Michael Conforto (as per reports) won;t help, they might as well see if Loperfido and/or Cole can spike some upside.

The pitching looks good but not great. Hunter Brown had a 2.43 ERA, 1.03 WHIP season last year, but beyond him there are nothing but question marks. Oh, and Josh Hader last pitched on 8/8/25, and now is slowed indefinitely with a biceps strain. Bryan Abreu can seamlessly step in to close, but there’s no one to replace Abreu himself. Houston has a well deserved excellent rep for developing pitchers, but they’ll need to really go into overdrive shaping up this staff.

Mariners Win AL (½ unit, +550 bet365)

Seattle is not the best team in the AL. They’re maybe 4th or 5th best. So why bet them to win the league? Well, they have a nice glide path to the 1st round bye. And they have likely the best rotation in MLB to get them to the playoffs and beyond. All of Bryan Woo, Logan Gilbert and George Kirby could capably front a staff in October, and Seattle has all three. Luis Castillo is 33 now and has declined from his heyday, but he’s super reliable as a 4th starter as he’s made at least 30 starts in all but one full season back to 2018. And he’s still good; he had a 3.54 ERA and 1.18 WHIP.

Seattle’s offense is a little thin. But Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodriguez are superstars, and Josh Naylor and Randy Arozena are quality bats as well. The rest of the lineup? Well not so much, but this kind of top heavy structure absolutely lends itself to trade deadline acquisitions. Kind of like they did last year when they added Naylor and “Geno” Suarez.

Athletics Over 75.5 Wins (-105 DraftKings)

Well, if the Athletic Baseball Club of Sacramento can best their win total, it will be thanks to their bats. They play in a launching pad and they have a pretty lousy rotation. 

But they can really mash and I think they can bomb their way to a .500 record. Kurtz, Langoliers, Soderstrom and Rooker sets up as an excellent top of the order as they should all hit over 25 homers. Throw in some good OBP guys like Jeff McNeil and Jacob Wilson and maybe a bounceback from Lawrence Butler and that’s a super solid lineup. 

As for the pitching, well, Jacob Lopez has high upside and maybe Luis Severino and Jeffrey Springs give them enough solid innings to get by.