East powers lead MLB futures

As Major League Baseball pauses for its All-Star Game (Tuesday 8:05pm ET, FOX) a look at the standings tells us what we thought we knew before the season even began � the top teams in baseball hail from the East divisions of the American and National leagues.

Heading into the All-Star Break only three teams in baseball had records of .600 or better, and not unexpectedly those clubs were the Philadelphia Phillies (.626), Boston Red Sox (.611), and New York Yankees (.602). Philly has a 3.5-game lead on the Atlanta Braves in the NL East, while Boston leads the Yankees by one game and the Tampa Bay Rays by six games in the AL East.

And of course those teams also lead the way on the futures charts at Oddsmaker for their league pennants. The Red Sox are the favorite in the American League right now at EVEN to claim the AL Pennant in October, with the Yankees right behind them on that list at +250. The Phillies are even bigger favorites in the National League, sitting at -200 to claim the pennant and get to the World Series.

The Braves are third on the NL Pennant list at Oddsmaker at +600; they have the second-best record in the National League and sat atop the NL Wild Card standings heading into the break.

It's the Milwaukee Brewers, though, that have become public darlings and sit second on the NL Pennant list at just +400 odds. The Brewers are mired in a four-way battle for first place in the NL Central with the St. Louis Cardinals (+800), Pittsburgh Pirates (+5000), and Cincinnati Reds (+1000), with just four games separating the four teams; Milwaukee entered the break tied with St. Louis for first place in the division.

The defending-champion San Francisco Giants are then at +700 to win the NL Pennant; they carried the lead in the NL West standings into the break, and they're third behind only the Phillies and Braves in the overall National League standings.

Back in the American League it's not just the AL East race that's tight, as the Detroit Tigers lead the Cleveland Indians by just a half game in the AL Central, and the Texas Rangers are just a single game ahead of the Los Angeles Angels in the AL West. Of those four clubs it's the Rangers with the best AL Pennant odds at +700, with the Tigers at +800, the Indians at +1500, and the Angels at +2000.

If the Rays were in the AL Central or the AL West they'd have an easier time reaching the postseason; with their .544 winning percentage they'd be in first place in the AL Central and just a game back of the Rangers in the AL West. Having to pass either the Red Sox or the Yankees in the standings, though, has the Rays back at +1200 to win the AL Pennant in October.

The second half of the baseball season gets underway on Thursday night with just seven games on tap: Florida at the Cubs, Milwaukee at Colorado, and San Francisco at San Diego in the National League, and Cleveland at Baltimore, the Yankees at Toronto, Kansas City at Minnesota, and Texas at Seattle in the American League.