Judge, USA favourites to win WBC; Naylor and Canada a longshot to reach Olympics

The 2026 World Baseball Classic begins Wednesday, and the stakes have never felt higher.

Aaron Judge and his American team sit as -115 favourites to win the event on FanDuel. Team USA came up just short at the WBC four years ago when Shohei Ohtani closed out the ninth inning for Japan in a 3-2 win, giving Japan its first World Baseball Classic title since 2009.

Meanwhile, Canada is a 60-1 longshot to win the tournament and has the second-best odds to win Pool A at +330, trailing only Puerto Rico (-110).

Looking to advance beyond pool play for the first time, Canada is +105 to make it out of Pool A, sporting better odds than Colombia, Cuba and Panama.

While the main goal is to win the event, the secondary goal for 10 teams will be to outlast the other teams from the Americas.

As part of the qualifying process for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, the top two nations in this event from The Americas not already qualified for the games will earn a berth.

Since the 2028 Olympics will be in LA, Team USA already has already qualified.

Judge, USA players leading the way in 2026 WBC MVP Odds

Sitting as the favourites to win the event, Team USA has seven of the players in the top 10 for MVP odds with Judge leading the way at +750.

“A lot of crazy things happening in the world right now,” Judge said after the team’s workout on Monday. “I count my blessings every day that I get a chance to come out here, play the game that I love, have my family around me and be around these great guys.”

Judge added, “I flipped [the jersey] over and looked at the front where it said USA and for me it just really hit home,” he said. “I started thinking of — some of us probably have people who have served in the military in our family or people we know who have served in the military.”

One player on Team USA high in MVP odds and high on Americana is CY Young winner Paul Skenes.

Skenes spent two seasons pitching for Air Force in college and earlier this week said he was “fully intent” on serving for the military before transferring to LSU and winning a National Championship.

“This isn’t serving, but it’s a pretty close second,” Skenes said in an interview.

Skenes is slated to throw twice for Team USA, once in pool play and once in the knockout stage. But considering he’s only thrown once in Spring Training we don’t know what his pitch limits will be for the two starts.

What we do know is Skenes is slated to start the third game of pool play which would put him in line for his second start to come either in the semi-final or the final, should the U.S. advance.

If Skenes pitches for Team USA in the final, his price at +1400 to win MVP could be something you’re interested in.

Ohtani, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Juan Soto are the only non-Americans priced shorter than 30-1 in the MVP market.

Josh Naylor (+15000) is the only Canadian priced shorter than 250-1 to win MVP.

Canada’s path to the Olympics

Based on the betting odds, it appears Pool A will be the most competitive of the four, making Canada’s path to the knockout stage (and Olympics) even tougher than we thought.

Looking at FanDuel, we can see Puerto Rico as the favourite to advance from Pool A at -280.

That number comes with an implied probability of 68.75 per cent.

That leaves Canada at +105 and three other teams priced between +145 and +300 to advance.

Meanwhile, in Pool B, two teams are priced longer than 20-1 to advance, in Pool C, Czechia is +1200, and in Pool D, there are two teams also priced longer than 15-1 to advance.

Once Canada makes it through, there’s a solid chance they run into Team USA for a quarterfinal game.

Team USA sits -650 to win Pool B, which would put them in the spot of the bracket playing the second-place team from Pool A. The betting odds indicate it’ll most likely be Canada.

If Canada and the USA meet in the QF, Canada will need to pull off the upset and hope two other teams from the group of Americas haven’t also reached the semi-final or else they’d likely need to reach the final in order to qualify for the 2028 Olympic Games.

Will Vlad carry a hot 2025 into 2026 / MVP and Group Stage Bets

When we last saw Vladimir Guerrero Jr. he was having an all-world October.

The 26-year-old had a .397 batting average with eight home runs and 15 RBI in 18 playoff games last October.

Now, as a lead man on the Dominican Republic, Vladdy has a chance to help lead his country back to the Olympics after they won Bronze at the 2020 Games.

If this team makes a deep run for the championship, I expect it to be on the backs of Juan Soto and Vlad Jr. But if Soto is going to be a table-setter for Guerrero Jr., I like the price on Vlad at +2200 to win MVP.

I’ll also take a flyer on Team USA catcher Cal Raleigh at +3000. Last season we saw Judge and Raleigh engaged in an MVP battle that could’ve gone either way. If teams try to limit Judge’s damage by pitching around him, it could set up another bopper like Big Dumper to clear the bases in some big spots.

Finally, I will play the Dominican Republic and Venezuela to advance out of Group D at -220. At this price, it’s not a big splash, but with Israel and Nicaragua +1600 to advance, it appears the only threat to these two teams will be the Netherlands (+270).

With the talent difference and motivation of qualifying for the Olympics, I’ll pay the juice man and take this -220 prop that both Dominican Republic and Venezuela advance beyond the group stage.