Zach Thompson breaks down his 2026 MLB futures picks for the National League West division winner on DraftKings Sportsbook.
The National League West looks to be one of the clearest divisions coming into the new MLB season. On paper, it has the best and the worst team in the majors, with the Los Angeles Dodgers as the World Series favorite and the Colorado Rockies one of the worst teams on the board. As all the teams start taking the field for spring training and we get a look at some familiar faces in new places, it’s a great time of year to survey the field and check out some preseason futures bets. Even though there is a clear favorite and major underdog, the National League West has an interesting group of teams in the middle of the division.
Last year, the Dodgers went 93-69 on their way to the division title, and ultimately, their second straight World Series win. They finished three games ahead of the San Diego Padres, who were a Wild Card team at 90-72. The San Francisco Giants were 81-81, right at .500, while the Arizona Diamondbacks went 80-82, one game further back. The Cincinnati Reds and New York Mets each finished 83-79 tied for the final Wild Card spot, with the NL West’s Dbacks and Giants both left just out of the postseason. In almost another area code, the Colorado Rockies went 43-119, finishing with the fewest wins in the majors by a wide margin and ending up 50 games behind the Dodgers.
So, which of these divisional rivals has the edge going into 2026? I’ll break down all five squads before sharing my favorite betting pick to win the NL West on DraftKings Sportsbook.
NL West betting preview and prediction
The Dodgers may have broken baseball this offseason, depending on who you believe on X and which reporter’s opinion you value. The two-time champions went out and added premium free agents in OF Kyle Tucker and RP Edwin Diaz, also bringing back Miguel Rojas, Enrique Hernandez and Evan Phillips. They lost minimal contributors OF Michael Conforto, RP Anthony Banda and RP Kirby Yates, getting significantly better at their two biggest positions of need.
If their rotation is even a little bit healthier this year, they should be even better in the regular season and be set up for another deep postseason run. They’re the Death Star, and barring multiple significant injuries, they should run away with the division, as you can infer from their extremely heavy odds. No other team in the majors has shorter odds than +110 to win their division, but the Dodgers are all the way at -600.
There’s no real value in targeting them to win the division since it seems like such a slam dunk, and even taking them to win the World Series at +230 doesn’t offer a ton of value. It’s baseball, so fluky things can happen in a short series in the postseason, and the Blue Jays had their chances to pull off the upset last year. It’s not that the Dodgers are a lock to win the World Series, but over the course of the whole regular season, it’s hard to see anyone coming close to challenging their depth and talent across all positions.
For sake of comparison, the Dodgers are -200 to take the No. 1 seed in the National League, which means they’re twice as heavily favored to be the top team in the league than any other team is favored to win just their division.
The Padres have been second to the Dodgers and in a Wild Card spot for each of the last two seasons and three of the last four. They’re firmly in the second spot again coming into this year, and they have a strong chance to make it to the postseason, as indicated by their odds at -155 to make the playoffs.
They were quiet most of the offseason, resigning Michael King and adding Sung-Mun Song, but other than that, the biggest news they were a part of was the departures of Dylan Cease, Robert Suarez and Luis Arraez (to a division rival!). That changed in the last few weeks as the team made a flurry of moves right before spring training, adding Miguel Andujar, Nick Castellanos and Griffin Canning.
Castellanos and Andujar are interesting pieces to add to the offensive puzzle, but the lineup still doesn’t have a ton of depth or power. They’ll need the rotation to carry them again this year, and getting King back with a hopefully healthy Joe Musgrove should go a long way to getting them back to the postseason once again. The fifth spot in the rotation will be a spot to watch in spring training as German Marquez and Griffin Canning compete for starts, with Yu Darvish (elbow) likely missing the entire season.
The Giants were much busier than San Diego in the offseason, but they probably didn’t do quite enough to catch the Friars for second in the division. They added Luis Arraez from San Diego and also added Harrison Bader to anchor their outfield. Bringing in Tyler Mahle and Adrian Houser to the rotation will also help add more depth while covering for the departure of Justin Verlander.
The Giants had a +21 run differential last season, giving them the best run differential of all NL teams not in the playoffs. The team hovered around .500 until going 2-11 in early August and then winning 11 of 12 to get back to 72-69 at that point. The streaky team landed right at 81-81, missing the playoffs by two games.
With a full season of Rafael Devers, Arraez at 2B, and a deeper rotation, the Giants should be slightly better if they stay healthy. They should be able to finish over .500, but I don’t think they did enough to reel in the Padres.
The Diamondbacks were a fascinating team to watch last season. They had plenty of young talent, sold some of their veterans at the trade deadline, and then went on a run that almost got them back into the playoffs.
The team didn’t fully reset things this offseason, though, holding onto Ketel Marte and adding veteran bats in Nolan Arenado and Carlos Santana at the corners. They brought back starting pitchers Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly (after trading him to the Rangers for 10 starts last season), while also adding Michael Soroka to the rotation.
While the team has a very experienced starting rotation, the lineup definitely needs Corbin Carroll to recover quickly from his hamate injury and get back to being a middle-of-the-order bat. The offense lacks a little power without Suarez at the hot corner, and they’ll need Arenado and Santana to step in and make meaningful contributions.
Post-hype sleeper Jordan Lawlar could be part of the solution as he looks to move to the outfield, but this team will have to overachieve to make the playoffs in 2026. They have proven to be a plucky, gutsy bunch in the past, and there are still 15 players on the roster from the 2023 World Series finalist squad. They’ll need another improbable run like that in 2026. It’s definitely not out of the question, but it seems like an uphill battle.
Speaking of battling uphill… the Rockies are almost universally regarded as one of the worst franchises in sports. They bring some intrigue to DFS and season-long fantasy baseball with Coors Field boosting their offense, but as a team, they were a miserable 43-119 last season, which saw them 50 games behind the Dodgers and “only” 37 games behind the Dbacks for fourth place in the division.
If you bet $100 on the Rockies finishing in last place in their division right now, you’d earn a grand total of $0.50. They’re more locked into last place than the Dodgers are to first place, according to the odds, and it’s not even close.
Did they move things around a little? Sure. Pitchers Jose Quintana, Tomoyuki Sugano and Michael Lorenzen are new arrivals, along with hitters Willi Castro, Edouard Julien and Jake McCarthy. They lost struggling veteran German Marquez to the Padres and moved on from Kyle Farmer, Michael Toglia and Thairo Estrada, who mostly had fantasy relevance due to their home games being at Coors Field.
The Rockies have some interesting fantasy sleepers and fun individual players, but they are still a long way from fielding a competitive team in Denver.
Best Bet: Straight Tifecta 1st LAD / 2nd SDP / 3rd SFG (+210)
Since we’re looking for value at this point in the offseason, this is a tough call to make since the division order seems so set. If we eliminate the Dodgers at the top and the Rockies at the bottom as virtual locks for those places, that leaves the Padres, Giants and D-backs in the middle of the division.
The Padres still feel like the second-best team, but the LAD-SDP straight forecast is only at -110 odds. To get this up over +200, I’m willing to pick the Giants over Arizona coming into the season since they’re healthier and more established. Really this feels like taking SF over ARI for +210, which I feel like brings good value since that’s the order from last year and the Giants improved more this offseason.