\nNov. 3 (Bloomberg) \u2014 The Chicago Cubs\u2019 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.<\/p>\n
\tThe movement is \u201cpretty hefty\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThis is just the tip of the iceberg,\u201d Kornegay said. \u201cHe\u2019s obviously a very good manager, but he\u2019s going to need some players.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe Cubs were 73-89 last season, finishing last in the five-team National League Central division. Chicago hasn\u2019t made the Major League Baseball playoffs since 2008 and last won a playoff game in 2003. The club\u2019s 106-year championship drought is the longest in North American professional sports.<\/p>\n
\tAt online sports book Bovada.lv, action on the Cubs moved the team\u2019s odds to 18-1 from 50-1. The 10 MGM Resorts International Race and Sports Books cut the Cubs\u2019 odds to 22-1 from 30-1 in anticipation of Maddon\u2019s hiring.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe\u2019ve now received a large number of wagers on the Cubs and have moved it down to 15-1,\u201d Jay Rood, vice president of Race & Sports for MGM Resorts International, said in an e-mail.<\/p>\n
\tFive-Year Deal<\/p>\n
\tMaddon, 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.<\/p>\n
\tThe Cubs\u2019 odds to win the National League pennant moved to 11-1 from 18-1, according to Kornegay.<\/p>\n
\tThe 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).<\/p>\n
\tThe 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. Posted by:<\/strong> Berto on July 11, 2015, 12:15 pm<\/p>\n \tWe’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<\/em>). 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.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) \u2014 The Chicago Cubs\u2019 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….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\tTo contact the reporter on this story: Eben Novy-Williams in New York at enovywilliam@bloomberg.net<\/a> To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Sillup at msillup@bloomberg.net<\/a> Dex McLuskey, Rob Gloster<\/p>\n
\nReplies:<\/h3>\n
\n\tIn a great book called "Scorecasting" here on Amazon<\/a>, 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. <\/p>\n