With less than four weeks remaining in the regular season, there are heavy favorites for the National League MVP, Cy Young and Rookie of the Year awards.
A veteran likely will win MVP for the first time in his career, while a young stud will likely take home the CY Young for the first time. The Rookie of the Year race is set to be decided among a pair of teammates on the defending champions.
American League MVP, Cy Young, Rookie of the Year Odds
Each race has a heavy favorite.
With only twenty-something games left for the candidates to make their case, here are the updated markets at SI Sportsbook.
Paul Goldschmidt -4000
Nolan Arenado +3000
Freddie Freeman +3000
Paul Goldschmidt has been unstoppable this season, hitting .325 with 35 home runs, 101 runs scored, six stolen bases, and 109 RBIs entering Wednesday. He’s third in fWAR (6.9) and leads all of MLB with a .413 OBP.
Goldschmidt had +5000 odds for NL MVP coming into the season.
The next-best odds for this award go to his teammate, Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado, and Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman.
Arenado has also produced an incredible season and is fourth in MLB with a 6.7 fWAR, and has 28 homers and 93 RBIs. There’s no way he’s winning this award over Goldschmidt, but perhaps what’s most interesting is that it backs up our preseason bet to take the Cardinals to win the NL Central.
The Brewers were favored before the season began, but we zagged and took the Red Birds at +220 odds. St. Louis has an eight-game lead entering Wednesday.
Sandy Alcantara -200
Max Fried +600
Julio Urias +600
Atlanta’s Max Fried and Los Angeles’s Julio Urias have each had very strong seasons, but Miami’s Sandy Alcantara has been on another level.
Alcantara doesn’t work his magic by striking out a lot of batters (only 8.1 per nine innings). Instead, he has a four-pitch mix that he uses to mow down hitters. He keeps batters guessing, and he has only allowed 0.6 home runs per nine innings (tied fourth-best), while pitching to a 2.43 ERA (sixth-best).
Spencer Strider -380
Michael Harris +240
Spencer Strider has been one of the biggest surprises of the MLB season. He recently set a franchise record for the Braves by striking out 16 batters in a single game, a record was previously held by none other than Hall of Famer John Smoltz.
Strider is 10-5 with a 2.72 ERA and 1.01 WHIP and is striking batters out at a 38% clip, the highest rate among pitchers with a minimum of 100 innings pitched.
Michael Harris has also been impressive with the Braves, hitting .311 with 18 home runs and 16 stolen bases in just 94 games.
We again have two teammates vying for an award and their team is firmly in the hunt to win the division. It’s unfortunate that both players can’t take home this award, but perhaps they can share the NL pennant instead.
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