This year the sports betting gurus will once again have their hands full trying to pick a winner. On paper the MLB odds makers like the St Louis Cardinals chances, and how can you not? This is a team that won the baseball betting last year and has probably only gotten better in the off season.

Obviously any talk about Cardinals’ baseball betting centers around slugger Albert Pujuls the reigning NL MVP and best hitter in sports betting. And this year he’s got protection in the lineup thanks to the re-signing of Matt Holiday –one of the better bats in baseball gambling. The Red Bird’s pitching staff is also superb, led by 19-game winner Adam Wainright the team starting rotation is among the best in baseball betting and the division is theirs to lose.

But the Brewers should give this team a run for its in the MLB betting competition and even if it doesn’t catch the Cardinals in division title race, it’s still a baseball wagering caliber team and could grab a wildcard berth in the MLB playoff betting. Prince Fielder (46 HRs, 140 RBIs) and Ryan Braun (.320) punish opposing pitchers at the plate and if the starting pitching can keep up on the mound this is one of the better teams in the NL betting.

The Cubbies also hope that this is the year that they shake their MLB betting curse, but that seems unlikely. After waiting for than a century to bring a World Series betting town back to Chi-Town what’s another MLB wagering season? Unless Carlos Zambrano can bounce back from a disastrous 2009 MLB baseball betting season the starting pitching simply isn’t good enough to carry this team to an NL Central baseball wagering title.

It’s no secret that the AL East will once again be the hardest neighborhood to win an MLB odds playoff spot. Thumbing through the stats from last season it’s easy to see that the top AL East far outperformed any other division in AL baseball betting competition and the entire MLB odds competition for that matter.

The AL East’s top 3 teams -led by the New York Yankees 103 regular season wins (not to mention a World Series title)- combined for 282 regular season wins. In comparison the AL Central’s top three teams combined for just 252 victories. And it’s no wonder that the AL East was so successful. They have some of the best hitters in the game with A-Rod, Big Papi, Mark Texiera, and Derek Jeter but what makes this division so tough is the pitching.

Names like Sabathia, Halliday and Beckett send shivers down hitters spines. The NL West runs a close second in terms of top baseball betting divisions with teams like Dodgers, Rockies and even the Giants loaded with MLB odds talent. But until one of these teams wins the World Series the NL East is the division to beat.

Granted, money spent does not always equal baseball betting success, but it’s little coincidence that the Yankees (the biggest spenders in the MLB odds) are the World Series champs and the Pirates, Royals and Orioles (some of the lowest spenders in baseball betting) finished 2009 with some of the worst records in baseball betting.

So in that context of payroll, we can get a good idea of which teams are going to stink again in the 2010 season. The Pirates have to be included on any short list of MLB odds cellar dwellers for this season as the team’s payroll remains miniscule by baseball betting standards, it added no real talent in the off season and it’s been nearly two decades since the team had a winning record.

Throw the Nats in this group of dungeon dwellers as well. Even with the new golden armed rookie Steven Stausborg, this is an awful team and one that should once again finish last in the NL East. The Royals, playing in one of the smallest markets in the MLB odds and traditionally very bad should also once again vie for the worst record in the Bigs. But the very worst team in MLB, look for the Orioles to be at the bottom of the heap when the 2010 dust finally settles.