Which Team Is the Biggest NL West Dark Horse?

When it comes to MLB futility, few franchises have fared worse on the diamonds of The Show quite like the Colorado Rockies, who have yet to win an NL West pennant in 32 seasons of baseball in the Mile High City.  

Worse yet for Rockies fans is the fact that Colorado’s coming off successive 100-loss seasons, with last year’s team going 61-101 (.377) and finishing dead last in the NL West for a third straight season.  

Ahead of the 2025 MLB Season opener, BetColorado.com and its Colorado sports betting experts wanted to see what team in the NL West is the biggest dark horse historically. Using preseason odds and final win totals from SportsOddsHistory.com, we found the total O/U for each team between the 2020-2024 seasons and ranked teams based on how much they outperformed their preseason odds.  

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Biggest NL West Dark Horse

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Where Rockies Rank

Of the four teams in the NL West, the Rockies have somehow beaten out their preseason win total over/under by a cumulative of 3.5 victories per season over the last half-decade, which says a lot about how low the stakes have been in Denver given the fact that the Rockies have not won more than 74 games during that stretch.  

Still, Colorado’s +3.5 win total over/under figure puts them third in the NL West, behind the San Francisco Giants’ total of +24.5 and the defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers’ +19.5 figure.  

The Rockies ranked ahead of teams like the Arizona Diamondbacks, who have finished with 3.5 fewer wins versus their preseason win total over/under figure since 2020, while the San Diego Padres have finished 10.5 games behind the over/under total between 2020 and 2024.  

For reference, this year’s Rockies team enters the MLB regular season with an over/under of 58.5 wins, giving Colorado MLB fans something to shoot for when the team takes the field for the first time later this month.  

Stay with BetColorado.com for more Rockies coverage and check out our best Colorado sportsbook promos page before you place your next wager.

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Author

Christopher Boan

@cgboan

Christopher Boan has been covering sports and sports betting for more than seven years, including stops at ArizonaSports.com, the Tucson Weekly and the Green Valley News.