Six weeks into the MLB season, the landscape of the AL Central changed in an instant on Monday afternoon.
Detroit Tigers pitcher and back-to-back Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal was scratched from his scheduled start on Monday night against the Boston Red Sox, followed by a report that he would undergo surgery for loose bodies in his left elbow.
While Skubal is expected back by the end of the season, surgery is expected to keep the lefty ace out several months. Not only does this injury compromise the division-favorite Tigers for the foreseeable future, but it throws a huge curveball at anyone trying to predict who will win the American League Cy Young Award.
Skubal entered the season with +400 odds to win the award, the shortest number of anyone on the board. To make things even more interesting in this race, consider the second favorite for AL Cy Young was Red Sox left-hander Garrett Crochet, who also finds himself on the injured list after an uncharacteristically shaky start to the season.
Another preseason Cy Young hopeful, Minnesota Twins right-hander Joe Ryan, left his last start with elbow tightness and will require season-ending surgery.
So, who’s left?
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A pair of New York Yankees, Cam Schlittler and Max Fried, are currently the favorites at +220 and +330, respectively, but those short numbers don’t offer a ton of value. With so much time left and pitcher injuries being so prevalent, I wanted to target someone whose odds would offer more of a payout.
Texas Rangers ace Jacob deGrom won the National League Cy Young Award twice in his time with the New York Mets, and currently has odds of +1300 entering his Tuesday night start against the red-hot Yankees. deGrom, through six starts, has a 2.01 ERA, a 0.96 WHIP, and an impressive 40 strikeouts to just seven walks.
Health has to be a concern with deGrom, who missed a large chunk of the latter years of his Mets tenure due to injury, as well as much of the 2023 and 2024 seasons with the Rangers. But, since the start of last season, he has stayed healthy and flashed the durability he showed early in his career.
Considering his pedigree and the number of injury-riddled aces throughout the rest of the American League, a dominant season could yield deGrom more hardware. There also might be a sentimental incentive to vote for the prolific ace, and reward him following all the injuries he’s battled throughout recent years.
deGrom is still an elite ace, and in what is now a wide-open race, I like him at 13-1 odds to win yet another Cy Young, this time in the American League.
PICK: Jacob deGrom (+1300) to win AL Cy Young
