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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 Monday night against the Boston Red Sox, following a report that he would undergo surgery for loose bodies in his left elbow.
While Skubal is expected back at the end of the season, the surgery is expected to keep the left-handed ace out for several months. This injury not only compromises 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 other favorite for the 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 the short numbers don’t offer a ton of value. With so much time left and pitcher injuries so prevalent, I wanted to target someone whose odds would provide more of a payoff.
Texas Rangers ace Jacob deGrom won the National League Cy Young Award twice during his time with the New York Mets, and currently has odds of +1500 after his start Tuesday night against the red-hot Yankees. deGrom, through seven starts, has a 3.11 ERA, a 1.01 WHIP and an impressive 47 strikeouts to just eight walks.
Health must be an issue for deGrom, who missed much of the final 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 displayed the durability he showed early in his career.
Given his pedigree and the number of injury-plagued aces in the rest of the American League, a dominant season could earn deGrom more hardware. There may also be a sentimental incentive to vote for the prolific ace and reward him after all the injuries he’s battled over the past few years.
deGrom is still an elite ace, and in what is now an open race, I like him at 13-1 odds to win another Cy Young, this time in the American League.
PICK: Jacob deGrom (+1300) wins AL Cy Young
