Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) — The Chicago Cubs’ odds to win the World Series for the first time in more than a century narrowed to 25-1 from 40-1 in Las Vegas after the team announced Joe Maddon as its next manager.

The movement is “pretty hefty” for a managerial change, Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook Executive Director Jay Kornegay said, and reflects the expectation that Chicago will be active on the free-agent market as it bids for a first World Series title since 1908.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” Kornegay said. “He’s obviously a very good manager, but he’s going to need some players.”

The Cubs were 73-89 last season, finishing last in the five-team National League Central division. Chicago hasn’t made the Major League Baseball playoffs since 2008 and last won a playoff game in 2003. The club’s 106-year championship drought is the longest in North American professional sports.

At online sports book Bovada.lv, action on the Cubs moved the team’s odds to 18-1 from 50-1. The 10 MGM Resorts International Race and Sports Books cut the Cubs’ odds to 22-1 from 30-1 in anticipation of Maddon’s hiring.

“We’ve now received a large number of wagers on the Cubs and have moved it down to 15-1,” Jay Rood, vice president of Race & Sports for MGM Resorts International, said in an e-mail.

Five-Year Deal

Maddon, who today signed a five-year contract with the team, left the Tampa Bay Rays on Oct. 24. He was 754-705 in nine seasons in Tampa, leading the franchise to its only four postseason appearances, including a World Series berth in 2008.

The Cubs’ odds to win the National League pennant moved to 11-1 from 18-1, according to Kornegay.

The Los Angeles Dodgers and Washington Nationals are co- favorites at 6-1 to win the World Series next year, followed by the Los Angeles Angels (8-1), Detroit Tigers (10-1), Baltimore Orioles (12-1) and Seattle Mariners (14-1).

The San Francisco Giants, who last week won their third World Series in five years, are 16-1, tied with the runner-up Kansas City Royals and St. Louis Cardinals.
To contact the reporter on this story: Eben Novy-Williams in New York at enovywilliam@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Sillup at msillup@bloomberg.net Dex McLuskey, Rob Gloster

Replies:

Posted by: Berto on July 11, 2015, 12:15 pm

This is "thread necromancy", but:
In a great book called "Scorecasting" here on Amazon, there's a chapter on the Cubs. It says that since they fill the seats in Wrigley field so frequently that management is under-incented. They have no reason to make difficult trades, make bold moves in the office, generally do the things down the pennant stretch that get a Cub-caliber team into the playoffs. I think they even have an argument that it makes the minor league organizations hustle a little less. The author's theory is the Cubs have a very, very small chance of winning the World Series any particular year because of this.

We've seen a lot of that kind of scrappy play out of the A's and more recently the Pirates, but it's still not enough to get them to the trophy. Beating a major market team with a top-5 payroll in a seven-game series isn't 50-50 (see: Royals v. Giants, 2014). I think the Cubs are very far away, even when they're looking strong in August. Nobody's going to get fired because Wrigley is going to continue selling tickets.