AL MVP likely on side of the Angels
Shohei Ohtani is Bo Jackson, or at least he’s doing Bo Jackson things. He hit a baseball at 119 mph on Monday night, joining Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez and Nelson Cruz as the only players to hit a ball that hard since Statcast began tracking in 2015.
Through 12 games, Ohtani was slashing .340/.380/.745 with three doubles, two triples, four home runs and 12 RBIs. The only negative was that he didn’t pitch his second scheduled start of the season due to a recurring blister, and no update has been provided on his next start. Meanwhile, the Angels were tied for third in the AL at 7-5 entering Thursday, with Mike Trout hitting .381/.509/7.62 with four home runs. Since 2012, Trout has won or finished second in AL MVP voting seven times while never finishing lower than fifth. He still deserves to be a very short favorite over the AL MVP field, but the difference between this year’s Angels and those of previous years has been Ohtani. He is doing things never seen in modern baseball, but he still faces an uphill battle to beat his own teammate.
If I were looking for a non-Angels MVP bet, I’d look for odds on the Twins’ Byron Buxton, who’s 30/1 at DraftKings and FanDuel, 12/1 at the Westgate and 50/1 at PointsBet. I tried to bet $200 on Buxton at PointsBet, which had Buxton listed at 50/1, but when I logged in he was listed at 28/1. I did not bet that. Through nine games, Buxton had five home runs while batting .469/.528/1.094. Those numbers will come down, but I think he has a better chance to win the MVP than teammate Nelson Cruz.
Alex Bregman at 10/1 (DraftKings) doesn’t make much sense to me. I don’t think any Astro associated with the cheating scandal will be given serious award consideration unless he does something truly spectacular, like a 40-40 season. I think Bregman is dead money at the top.
NL MVP
DraftKings’ odds are off the board. Westgate has settled on dropping Fernando Tatis Jr. to 60/1, while he is 30/1 at FanDuel and 20/1 at BetMGM, which indicates that nobody knows exactly what to do with him. Early indications are that he will be activated this weekend in time to face the Dodgers. But it is interesting to see how much his odds have dropped due to a single stint on the 10-day injured list. He could return and put his name back into the conversation, but I don’t see how Tatis will be a serious MVP candidate when you consider he’s less than fully healthy and unlikely to outperform Corey Seager, another shortstop on a better team in Tatis’ division. The Dodgers are on pace for almost 130 wins, and I still think the MVP will come from the Dodgers if they win close to 120 games.
Ronald Acuna Jr. is giving everyone an early run, though. Westgate has dropped him to 3/1 already. FanDuel has 11/2, with PointsBet and BetMGM still offering 6/1. Acuna was batting a red-hot .447/ .500/1.000 with six home runs through 12 games.
Seager had one homer though 11 games entering Thursday, which isn’t much to worry about. He was among the NL leaders in hard-hit balls and was batting .356/ .463/.556 with nine walks in 54 plate appearances. Seager is worth checking out at 10/1 or better odds if you haven’t bet him already. At those odds he’s a better bet to win MVP than teammate Mookie Betts. Plus it’s a contract year for Seager, so he has extra motivation.
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