MLB Futures: Best Bet to Win NL Cy Young Award (2020)
Over the last seven years, the National League Cy Young Award voting has been dominated by three pitchers. Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer, and Clayton Kershaw have all won back-to-back awards in this span. Jake Arrieta also won the award in this span in 2015 while a member of the Chicago Cubs.
Thus, when looking to place a futures bet on who will take home the Cy Young, make sure to scour over the odds of starting pitchers first and foremost. However, in a season where just 60 games will be played, does this put more added emphasis on teams’ bullpens? Is this the year a reliever wins the NL Cy Young Award for the first time since Eric Gagne’s magical 2003 season?
In this article, we use odds from BetMGM to discuss our best bet and favorite value play to win the National League Cy Young Award. You can also view our consensus odds for the NL Cy Young here.
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Odds to Win the 2020 National League Cy Young Award (odds courtesy of BetMGM)
Best Bet: Walker Buehler (+1000)
In a 60-game shortened season, starting pitchers will make roughly 12 starts each. What will separate pitchers from the rest of the pack when it comes to Cy Young award voting? Will it be wins if a pitcher can win 10 games in that short timeframe? Will it be their number of strikeouts? Would playing on a dominant team and leading them to a division title help sway voters?
If all these instances prove true, then Walker Buehler’s odds of +1000 represent nice value. As Clayton Kershaw enters his 13th season with a lot of postseason mileage on his arm, it could be argued that the younger Buehler is the ace of the Dodgers staff.
Buehler made his first All-Star game appearance in his third year in the big leagues last year. He went 14-4 with a 3.26 ERA. His .778 winning percentage was the best in the league, and his two complete games were tied for the league-lead. As a result, Buehler finished ninth in the Cy Young Award voting.
Though he has made just 53 starts in the last two years, Buehler has shown a penchant for run prevention. As a rookie, his 2.62 ERA in 23 starts earned him a third-place finish in the Rookie of the Year voting. In 2019, his 1.04 WHIP ranked ninth in the majors, and his 10.61 K/9 innings ranked seventh in the National League and 15th in the majors.
Buehler plays on a team that should run away with the National League West and also contend for the major’s best record. He should continue to get better in his fourth year, and may anoint himself the true ace of the staff by year’s end.
While leading contenders Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer deal with more difficult schedulers, Walker Buehler benefits from facing the less powerful lineups of the NL and AL West divisions. In a year where the Dodgers may sweep many of the postseason awards, I want some stake in their best pitcher to win the Cy Young.
Best Value Bet: Josh Hader (+3300)
What? A bet on a reliever to win the Cy Young? If there is any year where it could happen, this could certainly be the year.
We see it every postseason, where managers that have dominant bullpens to rely on minimize their starting pitchers’ innings and “shorten the game†with multiple arms out of the bullpen. Playing just a 60-game season will have every regular-season game take on a postseason-type of feel. Thus, we should expect managers to approach the regular season with a play0ff-type of mentality.
Josh Hader of the Milwaukee Brewers is not your average reliever. He is not a lefty specialist who comes into games based on matchups, or a closer whose job is to only get the final three outs. Hader is often asked to throw multiple innings. Many times, those innings are in the middle of the game in the most high-leverage situations.
Hader has won the National League Reliever of the Year award in back-t0-back years. He is a two-time All-Star and finished seventh in the Cy Young award in 2018. Hader owns a 2.42 career ERA and has struck out a mind-boggling 44.6% of all batters he has faced, which is the highest percentage in all of baseball. When Brewers GM David Stearns was asked about Hader and a possible arbitration case to follow back in December, he issued the following sentiments.
Throughout his career, Josh Hader is no stranger to pitching on consecutive days. He 2019, he pitched in 10 of 61 games on no days rest, and his BAA of .118 is the lowest in these situations, per FanGraphs. Thus, expect Brewers manager Craig Counsell to summon Hader from the bullpen early and often in what figures to be a tight NL Central race. If the Brewers can come out on top of such a competitive division, Hader figures to be a big reason why.
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Mike Spector is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @MikeSpector01.