Jacob deGrom’s injury has certainly changed the landscape in the NL Cy Young Award race. deGrom’s numbers may simply be good enough to win with whatever number of innings he winds up throwing, but at least it has brought some of the long shots into the equation.
It is crazy to think about the seasons that guys like Brandon Woodruff and Kevin Gausman have had and to call them long shots, but deGrom is on another level when he is able to go out there every five or six days.
It is also amazing to see where the preseason odds were and then see where the odds are as the season progresses. Guys like Aaron Nola and Luis Castillo were out there at fairly short odds and they have not had the seasons that were expected of them. In fact, they’ve been far off of what the projections were. It happens year in and year out. Several guys fail to live up to expectations and other guys step up in a big way.
Of course the favorites are usually going to feature prominently, barring some kind of injury, but each and every season is a constant reminder that you can take some chances in futures markets like this. Some guys show indicators the previous season and carry them over the next year. Other guys were a flash in the pan with unsustainable peripherals. Other guys simply get injured and miss starts.
The Cy Young Award is one about accumulation of stats. If you can’t stay healthy, you can’t win it, unless you do something we’ve never seen before. Perhaps deGrom can do that, but he’ll need to be back out there putting up numbers down the stretch run.
2021 NL Cy Young Odds
| Player |  |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adam Wainwright | +7500 | +7500 | +8000 | ||
| Blake Snell | +5000 | +15000 | +15000 | ||
| Chris Paddack | +15000 | +10000 | +10000 | ||
| Craig Kimbrel | +15000 | +15000 | |||
| David Price | +25000 | +20000 | +20000 | ||
| Dinelson Lamet | +15000 | +15000 | |||
| Edwin Diaz | +20000 | +20000 | +20000 | ||
| German Marquez | +10000 | +20000 | +25000 | +20000 | |
| Jake Arrieta | +10000 | +10000 | |||
| Jon Gray | +10000 | +20000 | +20000 | ||
| Julio Urias | +10000 | +10000 | +20000 | +10000 | |
| Logan Webb | +10000 | +10000 | |||
| Madison Bumgarner | +20000 | +20000 | |||
| Mitch Keller | +20000 | +20000 | |||
| Noah Syndergaard | +15000 | +15000 | |||
| Pablo Lopez | +10000 | +15000 | +25000 | +15000 | |
| Patrick Corbin | +8000 | +15000 | +15000 | ||
| Stephen Strasburg | +7500 | +7500 | |||
| Trevor Bauer | +4000 | +20000 | |||
| Zac Gallen | +10000 | +15000 | +15000 |
NL CY YOUNG HANDICAPPING
Because this is an award about accumulation, durability is so important. Relievers don’t really win this award. Starting pitchers are the starting point for your handicap and you also want to look at starting pitchers that have a history of staying healthy. It doesn’t matter how promising a guy can be over 100 or 120 innings. The minimum nowadays is in the 170s because you need to be able to get 200+ strikeouts.
So many recent developments in baseball have changed the benchmarks needed to win these kinds of awards. Wins aren’t really as important because of specialization and increased dependency on bullpens. On the other hand, a pitcher that can’t rack up strikeouts in the highest-strikeout environment we’ve ever seen, needs something else to fall back on.
That could be where wins come in. In order to accumulate wins, you need to pitch for a good team. You need to have a good defense that can prevent those batted balls from falling for hits. If you are a high-strikeout pitcher, you can do a lot of the heavy lifting yourself and overcome a lot more things. If you aren’t, then the details really matter a lot more.
Shopping around for the best odds should also be common practice when betting on anything, but especially player futures. Don’t settle for +1200 when you could have +1800 somewhere else. If you want to bet a long shot, look for +5000 instead of +3500.
The best of the number means your best chance at getting a high ROI on your investment. It will give you the opportunity throughout the season to maybe add other pitchers to your portfolio as a means of hedging.
Furthermore, not all sportsbooks will post in-season odds on these player futures markets. Just about all of them will post odds before the season starts, but not all of them will update those odds as the season goes along. Having a sportsbook that has fair odds at the start and keeps them updated throughout the course of the season will really be a big help to you and to your bankroll.
