Can the Philadelphia Phillies throw a wrench into the Houston Astros' march toward history?
The Astros enter the World Series undefeated in this postseason following sweeps of the Seattle Mariners and New York Yankees. They also hold home-field advantage, with Game 1 scheduled for Friday in Houston.
Oddsmakers see all those signs and have installed the Astros as enormous favorites to win the title ahead of their fourth World Series in the past six years.
Houston was installed as the -155 favorite by DraftKings, -185 by BetMGM and -186 by BetRivers.
Astros left fielder Yordan Alvarez is the favorite to win Most Valuable Player honors at all three sportsbooks. The left-handed slugger has a pair of home runs among four extra-base hits to go with 8 RBIs through Houston's first seven playoff games this season.
Alvarez is the +600 MVP favorite at DraftKings and BetMGM, slightly ahead of Phillies star Bryce Harper (+650 and +700). In addition to hitting the game-winning home run in Game 5 of the NLCS on Sunday, Harper has a 10-game postseason hitting streak, tying Lenny Dykstra's franchise-record set in 1993.
"He's everything to us," Phillies first baseman Rhys Hoskins said on Sunday. "He's in the moment and always seems to come up big in the moment. It's incredible. He's our MP3 as we call him."
Alvarez has drawn 10.4 percent of the MVP bets at BetMGM and leads the sportsbook with 19.1 percent of the money. Alvarez is the second-biggest MVP liability behind only Harper, who has been backed by 12.2 percent of the bets and 10.9 percent of the money.
Astros third baseman Alex Bregman (+1000) is next with 4.2 and 12.8 percent of the action, respectively.
"The best outcome for the sportsbook is the Phillies winning the World Series," BetMGM sports trader Halvor Egeland said. "Anyone winning World Series MVP other than Yordan Alvarez, Alex Bregman and Bryce Harper would be a good result for BetMGM as well."
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