I like to predict awards, but admittedly I like it when it’s more of a horse race.
When it comes to the Cy Young Award, we might wind up with one in the American League, with the elephant in the room being the recent edict against “sticky” substances that have been aiding pitchers, the lack of which tends to, well, “alter” the situation a bit.
This is not so much a forecast but an analysis for bettors as to where there might be some value in playing future odds on the Cy Young winner – in both leagues.
Odds to Win American League Cy Young Award
Gerrit Cole, New York Yankees -125
Carlos Rodon, Chicago White Sox +175
Lance Lynn, Chicago White Sox +400
Shane Bieber, Cleveland Indians +1800
There are others listed, but they don’t really matter. Cole has been the focus from the start, and he became even more of a focus when the Commissioner came out against the “foreign substances” pitchers are using to get a better grip on the baseball.
I realize that Cole is just coming off a monster effort, perhaps the biggest monster effort in the major leagues this season. Throwing a three-hit shutout at Houston with 129 pitches? Well, it just doesn’t get much better than that.
But just prior to that, he had a 5.24 ERA over six starts, giving up ten homers in 34 innings. So I still have my doubts that he is going to have the staying power.
Lance Lynn isn’t a bad candidate, frankly. At age 34, the White Sox righty is the only American League starter with an ERA under 2.00. And for you metrics aficionados, he leads the league in ERA+ (also known as ERA-Plus).
Rodon’s his teammate, and they might split some votes. But for those voters who might consider it important as to whether a guy is pitching for a contender, we already know the Chicago White Sox are a lot better bet to get there than the Yankees.
For those of you who are interested in things like wins and losses, Chicago’s record with Rodon starting is 10-5; with Lynn it is 9-7. The Yankees are 9-9 in Cole’s starts, while the Indians are 10-4 in the fourteen starts for Bieber, last year’s winner of this award.
This is one of those situations where I would be looking to “beat” Cole with somebody, and at +400, I might take a shot with LYNN.
Odds to Win the National League Cy Young Award
Jacob deGrom, New York Mets -1050
Brandon Woodruff, Milwaukee Brewers +1150
Kevin Gausman, San Francisco Giants +1150
Zack Wheeler, Philadelphia Phillies +1150
Corbin Burnes, Milwaukee Brewers +1800
Yu Darvish, San Diego Padres +1800
Trevor Bauer, Los Angeles Dodgers +2800
In what kind of world would Kevin Gausman, with a WHIP ratio of 0.820 and ranked #1 in Wins Against Replacement (WAR) among pitchers, or Brandon Woodruff, who’s got a 2.06 ERA and has yielded just 5.4 hits per nine innings, be priced at +1150 to win the Cy Young award?
Well, the kind of world Jacob deGrom of the New York Mets practically owns right now.
deGrom has, at least as of this moment, made a veritable mockery of this Cy Young race, even though there are a lot of guys who could be clear front-runners in any other season, and could be at the top of the heap if they were in the American League.
deGrom’s 1.08 earned run average is not just great; it’s historic.
He is in the process of shattering the record for lowest WHIP ratio in a single season (he’s at 0.5435 right now). So that means deGrom has allowed fewer than five and a half batters to reach base for each nine-inning period, which is phenomenal. He’s on his way to having the lowest ERA since 1914. He has allowed just 3.8 hits per nine innings, which is also the lowest ever, although Freddy Peralta (4.04) and Gausman (5.02) are in that neighborhood this season.
Strikeouts are en vogue right now, and deGrom leads the way, as his 14.28 per nine innings are the highest in history at the moment for a starting pitcher. Interestingly enough, every year in the last five years, his figure in that category has gone up. And there have been a couple of Cy Youngs during that period.
That brings up another thing – deGrom got the votes despite records of 10-9 and 11-8, and in neither case did the Mets make the postseason. He’s got even more leverage now.
The only real hope for any other contender would be for deGrom to get injured and miss appreciable time. If that happened, things would be rather wide-open, with the odds falling for many of these guys, of course. In that instance, Gausman, who is actually tied with deGrom in Wins Above Replacement (WAR), which writers look at, could be the front-runner.
As we speak, however, deGrom is the runaway winner, and a payoff of a little less than ten cents on the dollar. The only question is, does he have enough “juice” to win the Most Valuable Player award as well?
That is something we will explore soon enough.
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