Setting the odds

Considering baseball’s checkered past with gambling the current and long-standing outright ban on players and managers placing money on their teams, it is not without some irony that the Winter Meetings are currently taking Vegas by storm. As part of the wall-to-wall media coverage of the meetings, Jack Curry took some time out to figure out how Vegas sets the odds, and his story on it is illuminating. Right now, the Red Sox and Cubs are at 5-to-1 to make the Series next year while the Yanks sit at 6-to-1, but as Curry writes, the odds can change overnight. It all it takes is the signing of one free agent.