The MLB awards both an NL and AL MVP every season. The MVPs are determined by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BWAA). The actual voting occurs just before the MLB postseason, yet results are not announced until after the World Series. There are plenty of write-ups you’ll find around the internet, heck, even this site, that will give you advice on specific bets to make on the MVP futures race. However, we’re going to take a more “Macro approach” here. Zooming out a bit, we’ll provide some objective clues to give bettors a framework to use instead of focusing on specific picks.
Let’s lead off with the 2021 AL and NL MVP frontrunners/current odds (listed below, all in + lines based on BettingPros Consensus)
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When predicting the MVP, as with anything else, we should look to the past and reverse engineer our way to a baseline of options. Instead of viewing all the frontrunners above and working from there, let’s see how recent award winner’s odds were going in to the regular season to understand what actual MVP winner’s odds look like preseason.
As you can see above, rarely has the favorite actually ended up as the MVP. The NL MVP winner specifically seems to be an absolute crapshoot, averaging out to +3618 preseason odds, while the AL averaged out to +2017 preseason odds. Given this, it’s hard to view any of the top 2-4 favorites as a likely positive Expected Value (EV) play. That is, even if Trout ends up winning the 2021 MVP, as he’s a big favorite to do so, the payout isn’t worth the fact (we’ve discovered) big favorites don’t typically bring home the hardware. I would recommend working from the +800/+1000 and up.
After that, we can cross out any player on a team with a low win projection, given that MVPs rarely come from players sitting at home in October. That leaves us with the following options:
Here is the last but most critical part. It’s quite a labor-intensive process but has the chance to have the greatest impact. Although significant rules prohibit the BWAA members from DIRECTLY disclosing their selections (trust me, I tried), the MVP picks are made by humans. Humans with Twitter accounts. We will be running a formal study documenting keywords each voter uses relative to MVP candidates, but in the meantime, I would suggest doing your homework and investigating their content if you are planning to make a serious bet.
Below you can find the entire roster of the AL and NL MVP selectors, along with links to their bio/social media accounts.
| Name | Affiliation | Team(s) covered | Job description |
| Andrew Wagner | Wisconsin State Journal | Brewers | Beat Writer |
| Anthony Castrovince | MLB.com | All | Columnist |
| Barry M. Bloom | Forbes | All | Columnist |
| Bill Plunkett | Orange County Register | Dodgers | Beat Writer |
| Bill Shaikin | Los Angeles Times | All | National writer |
| Bob Dutton | At large | Mariners | Beat Writer |
| Bob Elliott | Canadian Baseball Network | All, Blue Jays | National writer |
| C. Trent Rosecrans | The Athletic | Reds | Beat Writer |
| Clark Spencer | Miami Herald | Marlins | Beat Writer |
| Dan Hayes | The Athletic | Twins | Beat Writer |
| Dan Szymborski | ESPN.com | All | Columnist |
| Dejan Kovacevic | DKPittsburghSports.com | Pirates | Columnist |
| Eric Stephen | SB Nation | All | National writer |
| Evan Drellich | The Athletic | All | National writer |
| Evan Grant | Dallas Morning News | Rangers | Beat Writer |
| Grant Brisbee | The Athletic | Giants | Columnist |
| J.P. Hoornstra | Southern California News Group | Dodgers | Beat Writer |
| Jane Lee | MLB.com | A’s | Beat Writer |
| Jason Foster | The Sporting News | All | Editor |
| Jay Jaffe | Sports Illustrated | All | Columnist |
| Jeff Fletcher | Orange County Register | Angels | Beat Writer |
| Jeff Passan | ESPN | All | National writer |
| Jim Alexander | Riverside Press Enterprise | Angels, Dodgers, Padres | Columnist |
| Jorge L. Ortiz | USA TODAY | All | National writer |
| Kyle Glaser | Baseball America | All | National writer |
| LaVelle E. Neal III | Minneapolis Star Tribune | Twins | Beat Writer |
| Leonte Landino | ESPN Deportes | All | Editor |
| Lou DiPietro | YES Network | Yankees | Beat writer |
| Lynn Henning | Detroit News | Tigers | Backup |
| Marc Topkin | Tampa Bay Times | Rays | Beat Writer |
| Mark Newman | At large | All | Editor |
| Mark Sheldon | MLB.com | Reds | Beat Writer |
| Mark Zuckerman | MASNsports.com | Nationals | Beat Writer |
| Matt Gelb | The Athletic | Phillies | Beat Writer |
| Matt Snyder | CBS Sports | All | National writer |
| Michael Axisa | CBS Sports | All | National writer |
| Mike Harrington | Buffalo News | Blue Jays | Columnist |
| Mike Petriello | MLB.com | All | Analyst |
| Nick Piecoro | The Arizona Republic | Diamondbacks | Beat Writer |
| Paul Sullivan | Chicago Tribune | Cubs, White Sox | Beat writer |
| Peter Abraham | The Boston Globe | Red Sox | Beat Writer |
| Rhett Bollinger | MLB.com | Angels | Beat Writer |
| Ricardo Montes | ESPN Deportes Miami | Marlins | Columnist |
| Rob Biertempfel | Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | Pirates | Beat Writer |
| Roberto Colon | El Nuevo Dia / Unanimo Deportes | All | National writer |
| Ryan Fagan | Sporting News | All | National Writer |
| Scott Lauber | Philadelphia Inquirer | Phillies | Beat Writer |
| Steve Buckley | The Athletic | Red Sox | Columnist |
| Ted Berg | At large | All | National writer |
| Tony DeMarco | FanRagSports.com | All | National writer |
| Tyler Kepner | New York Times | All | National writer |
| Zach Buchanan | The Athletic | Diamondbacks | Beat Writer |
| Zack Meisel | The Athletic | Indians | Beat Writer |
In summary, when predicting MLB MVPs:
- Ignore the top 2-4 favorites, and stick to the +2000 or above level
- Eliminate players from likely low win total teams
- Use human nature against the voters, and do your due diligence by finding clues on their Twitter accounts.
Given this strategy, we have whittled the positive EV selections down and will go a step further to find our final picks. Using Marcel Projections, excluding any player with under 30 HR projection, then considering OPS and Reliability, we find three picks in the +3000 category that we will invest in (Full Chart Below).
We suggest focusing the majority of your MLB MVP Futures bets on:
- Jose Ramirez
- Nelson Cruz
- Manny Machado
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