With the trade deadline past, the race for Cy Young remains populated by several strong contenders. This is particularly true in the American League where there are 8 different candidates with 15/1 odds or better, according to USA online sportsbooks like Bovada.
Felix Hernandez leads the pack with 9/4 odds. His stellar 2.01 ERA and .089 WHIP are both at the top of the AL. Averaging 9.69 strikeouts, 1.69 walks per 9 innings with a 2.09 FIP, Hernandez is truly at the top of his game. After a difficult June, he has bounced back and given up no more than 2 earned runs in each of his 14 starts.
While these numbers seem to make him the inevitable choice, the stat lines of Chris Sale (3/1 odds), Max Scherzer (6/1 odds), Corey Kluber (7/1 odds) and Sonny Gray (7/1 odds) mean that even a few bad starts by King Felix could lead to drastic changes in the race. Sale is particularly close to Hernandez’s numbers with a 2.09 ERA and 0.90 WHIP while Scherzer leads the AL with 13 wins.
Betting in the USA is a nation wide affair as our next two featured Cy Young contenders hail from opposite sides of the country. A strong candidate with a favorable payout is Jon Lester (12/1 odds). Lester is tied with Sonny Gray with a 2.59 ERA and a 1.14 WHIP despite having nearly double the payout potential. Lester’s 11 wins leave him in striking distance of that stat category while his move to Oakland, with its top-ranked offense and incredibly pitcher-friendly ballpark, increases his chances of piling up even better numbers before the close of the season.
Bets to take
Felix Hernandez – Low payout but very high chance of winning.
Chris Sale – Nearly tied with Hernandez with a slightly better payout.
Jon Lester – Best value. Reasonably strong chance of making a run in the last two months with highly preferable odds.
Bets to avoid
Max Scherzer – His 3.24 ERA is way behind the rest of the pack
David Price – While his offense improves with the move to Detroit, his home ballpark is now smaller and his string of successful starts only starts to make up for a subpar April, May and June.
Sonny Gray – While most of his numbers are stellar, his surprisingly high walk rate (49 in 146 innings) will likely crowd him out in a tight race.