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Six weeks into the MLB season, the landscape of the American League 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 to return at the end of the season, surgery is expected to keep the left-handed ace out for several months. This injury not only jeopardizes the division favorite Tigers for the foreseeable future, but also 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 lowest number of anyone on the board. To make things even more interesting in this race, consider that the second favorite for the American League Cy Young was Red Sox left-hander Garrett Crochet, who is also on the disabled list after an unusually shaky start to the season.
Another preseason Cy Young contender, Minnesota Twins right-hander Joe Ryan, left his last start with elbow stiffness 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 much value. With so much time left and pitching injuries so common, I wanted to target someone whose odds offered bigger returns.
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 Tuesday night start against the red-hot Yankees. deGrom, in seven starts, has a 3.11 ERA, 1.01 WHIP and an impressive 47 strikeouts with just eight walks.
Health has to be a concern for deGrom, who missed much of the final years of his tenure with the Mets 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 shown the durability he showed earlier in his career.
Considering his pedigree and the number of injury-plagued aces in the rest of the American League, a dominant season could provide deGrom with more hardware. There could 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 a wide-open race, I like that he has 13-to-1 odds to win another Cy Young, this time in the American League.
PICK: Jacob deGrom (+1300) to win the American League Cy Young
