Study · MLB 2026 · 26 March to 28 October
Baseball loves
the underdog.
In the 2026 MLB season the underdog won 42.6% of games: 922 of 2,163. Even the favourite loses about 4 games in 10.
2,163 games with closing prices from 3 or more books, 26 March 2026 to 28 October 2026 · Published 30 October 2026 ·
Free to quote under CC BY 4.0 ·
Download the data (CSV)
Favourites
by price.
Most MLB games are close calls. 1,676 of the 2,163 games had a favourite priced under 60%. The highest price all season was 78.4% (Los Angeles Dodgers against the Colorado Rockies on 28 May 2026).
| Favourite's price | Games | Priced to win | Won | Lost |
|---|
| 50-60% | 1,676 | 54.5% | 55.0% | 755 |
| 60-70% | 439 | 63.3% | 64.2% | 157 |
| 70-80% | 48 | 72.0% | 79.2% | 10 |
| All favourites | 2,163 | 56.7% | 57.4% | 922 |
Favourites won 57.4% against a 56.7% price. The 70-80% band beat its price, but it is only 48 games, so that could be luck.
The 10
biggest upsets.
Teams priced at 70% or more played 48 games and lost 10. The Colorado Rockies were the big underdog in 14 of those games and won 4.
| Date | Favourite | Priced to win | Lost to | Final |
|---|
| 13 May 2026 | Los Angeles Dodgers (home) | 73.8% | San Francisco Giants | 2-6 |
| 8 July 2026 | Los Angeles Dodgers (home) | 73.2% | Colorado Rockies | 3-4 |
| 3 September 2026 | Los Angeles Dodgers (home) | 72.4% | St. Louis Cardinals | 6-8 |
| 16 April 2026 | New York Yankees (home) | 72.0% | Los Angeles Angels | 4-11 |
| 2 April 2026 | Los Angeles Dodgers (home) | 71.8% | Cleveland Guardians | 1-4 |
| 30 March 2026 | Toronto Blue Jays (home) | 71.6% | Colorado Rockies | 5-14 |
| 5 April 2026 | New York Yankees (home) | 71.6% | Miami Marlins | 6-7 |
| 1 April 2026 | Toronto Blue Jays (home) | 71.5% | Colorado Rockies | 1-2 |
| 8 August 2026 | Boston Red Sox (home) | 71.4% | Athletics | 3-7 |
| 24 July 2026 | Milwaukee Brewers (home) | 70.8% | Colorado Rockies | 2-5 |
Final shows the favourite's score first.
Home field
month by month.
Home teams were priced to win 53.2% and won 53.4%, or 1,155 of 2,163. Home favourites won 58.0% of 1,465 games; home underdogs won 43.8% of 698.
| Month | Games | Home priced | Home won | Home wins |
|---|
| March (from 26th) | 73 | 56.5% | 60.3% | 44 |
| April | 344 | 53.0% | 53.2% | 183 |
| May | 371 | 52.8% | 54.2% | 201 |
| June | 353 | 52.9% | 54.4% | 192 |
| July | 316 | 52.8% | 49.1% | 155 |
| August | 357 | 53.5% | 54.1% | 193 |
| September | 322 | 53.5% | 53.4% | 172 |
| October (to 28th) | 27 | 54.9% | 55.6% | 15 |
| All | 2,163 | 53.2% | 53.4% | 1,155 |
July was the only month where home teams fell clearly short of their price. Over the season they finished 0.2 points over it.
Close
games.
27.5% of games were decided by a single run. The favourite won by two runs or more in 41.9% of games, which is why baseball favourites are so often sold with a run handicap.
Is it
real?
The closing odds were very close to the truth in 2026. Favourites were +0.7 points against their price (95% range -1.4 to 2.8 points if we resample the games 4,000 times) and home teams +0.2 points (range -1.8 to 2.3). Neither gap is big enough to call. The lesson is simpler: in baseball, even a strong favourite loses often.
Today's
MLB games.
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How we
measured.
The method
We took the closing moneyline for every MLB game from 26 March 2026 to 28 October 2026 that had prices from at least three sportsbooks (about 18 on average). Each book's two prices were turned into chances, then scaled so the two teams add up to 100%, which removes the book's cut (on average 4.01%). We averaged the books for each game and matched it to the final score. Doubleheaders, where one team hosted twice on the same day, were left out because the two games cannot be told apart safely.
On the Brier score (the average squared error of a chance; a coin flip scores 0.250), the closing prices scored 0.242, in line with the 0.2431 they expected of themselves. Baseball scores sit close to 0.250 because so many games are near coin flips.
The data file
mlb-favourites-2026.csv has one row per game. Columns: date, home, away, home_chance (margin-free closing chance for the home team), books, home_score, away_score, home_won.
Free to use, share and adapt under CC BY 4.0. Please credit “Bet Better (betbetter.world)” and link to this page.
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