MLB betting: Disrespected Giants are a fine bet to win NLDS over favored Dodgers

If you caught on to the San Francisco Giants being a great team to bet on early this season, you have plenty of extra money laying around.

It's not a bad idea to reinvest some back into the Giants.

All season, the Giants' lines were lower than they should have been, making them a fantastically profitable team for bettors. They won 107 games. Now in the NLDS against the Los Angeles Dodgers, the 107-win Giants are underdogs. They're +130 to win the series at BetMGM. The Giants are +100 against the Dodgers for Game 1.

Why start doubting the Giants now?

Giants have been great all season

The 2021 Giants are a rare story. They won and won and won and still presented value for bettors all the way up to the end of the regular season.

If you bet $100 on every Giants game this season, you profited $3,626, according to Covers.com. If you can find another bet that will turn a 36-unit profit, you're in good shape.

The Giants, somehow, were underdogs 57 times this season, according to TeamRankings.com. The Dodgers were underdogs twice. The San Diego Padres, who finished 79-83 and 28 games behind the Giants in the NL West, were underdogs only 46 times. A 107-55 team found itself getting a plus number more than one-third of the time. They were underdogs more often than a Padres team that just fired its manager after a horribly disappointing season.

Now we're to the playoffs and the Giants are getting another big number. Only 12 teams in MLB history have won more games than the 2021 Giants, by the way.

Dodgers are far from healthy

The Dodgers are a hard team to bet against. They were 106-56, tied for the 18th-most wins ever. They're legitimately great, with the 2020 World Series trophy to prove it. We perceive them to be the best team in baseball by a significant amount. However, the Giants were better this season.

The Giants won the season series 10-9 against the Dodgers. The Dodgers aren't fully healthy either. Max Muncy, the team's leader in homers and RBI, is likely out for this series. Clayton Kershaw and Trevor Bauer, two former Cy Young winners, are out — Kershaw due to an elbow injury and Bauer for sexual assault allegations. Max Scherzer, a future Hall of Famer and one of two candidates to win the Cy Young this season, had to start the NL wild-card game and will presumably start only one game this series.

The Dodgers are a great team even without those players, but the Giants didn't win 107 games and take the season series against L.A. by accident. Whatever we thought about the Giants before the season began has ceased to matter for months now. They're a great team too. They're perfectly capable of winning what will be an epic NLDS.

Something else to consider: The Giants are +700 to win the World Series. You won't find a 107-win team with those odds very often.