Last season the Chicago White Sox finished the regular season with just 41 wins. That number went way under the Vegas posted total for wins on the future market and also with 121 losses set the record for the most losses of all time, beating the 1962 Mets long standing mark.
The question for sports bettors now becomes how much better, or worse, can the Sox be this season? On the surface it seems like the lines makers don't have much confidence in the Sox, setting their season win total at 53 1/2. That number is the lowest preseason win total for any team since at least 1990. It's also five wins fewer than the Rockies, who have the second-lowest total at 58.5 wins. While that is an absurdly low total, it still would have the Sox having a 13-game improvement to cash the over for season wins.
It's hard to be as bad as the Sox were last season, and unimaginable to be worse, but for any team a 13+ game improvement is very unlikely.
Chicago did not do much to help their squad in the off season. The Sox lost their ace Garrett Crochet, along with Mike Soroka and Yoan Moncada. They brought in aging Martin Perez, 4th OF's Mike Tauchman and Austin Slater, Bryce Wilson, Josh Rojas, and Matt Thais. Not exactly a who's who of additions to this fledgling team.
Those who are banking on the over not only need to see a 13-game improvement, but on paper are betting on a worse team. They also haven't shown any reason to be enthusiastic this spring ranking 30th in team batting average, 30th in team on base percentage, 30th in team slugging percentage and 30th in OPS.
The numbers from the early lines are showing fans are taking the over for wins at a nearly 65% clip. Betting on a team like this takes some real guts and I would venture to say many of them are in the camp of "they can't be any worse". While this may be true, they don't have to be worse, in fact you're hoping they are actually much better. The over seems like a fool's errand to smart sports investors.