New York Yankees star Aaron Judge opened with 3-to-1 odds to win American League MVP at BetMGM. Those were fairly short odds for a preseason award, but Judge had won two of the last three AL MVP awards. It was justified.
About six weeks into a long baseball season, the odds indicate that nobody else has a realistic chance at the award.
Judge is playing at a historic level through the first six weeks of the season, and the odds keep jumping as a result. After about a month he was -550 to win (bet $550 to win $100). Then earlier this week he was -1000.
As of Friday Judge moved again to -1100 to win AL MVP. That’s pretty close to being a lock, with nearly five months left in the season.
Aaron Judge has a huge MVP lead
The implied odds of a -1100 favorite winning is 91.7%. That does leave the door open for someone else to win the award, but not by much.
The problem with finding anyone else to unseat Judge is that the Yankees outfielder is on a historic run.
Judge leads the AL in runs, hits, homers, runs batted in, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS (on-base plus slugging) and WAR (wins above replacement). He’s hitting .400 through 37 games. His OPS of 1.241 would be in the top 25 all time for a single season and excluding Barry Bonds, the highest for a player since Ted Williams in 1957.
Even for Judge’s standard, what he’s doing is hard to believe. He’s on pace to smash most of his career highs.
The only hope for the other contenders might be that there is a long way to go in the season. Even if the odds indicate there is only one other contender even close to Judge.
Aaron Judge has a massive lead in the AL MVP race. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Who could catch Judge?
It’s not just that Judge has a big lead already in the AL MVP race, it’s that there aren’t even multiple players anywhere near him in the odds. The odds at BetMGM indicate that it’s already a two-man race for AL MVP, with Judge having a massive lead over Bobby Witt Jr.
Witt is +900 behind Judge. The third player in the odds is Alex Bregman of the Boston Red Sox, and he’s 35-to-1. Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh is 50-to-1 and everyone else is 66-to-1 or longer.
Late in the season, when an MVP race has been practically decided and even an injury wouldn’t change it, it’s not unusual to see that big of a gap between the favorite, maybe one contender and the rest of the field. It’s rare to have that much of a runaway before mid-May.
The obvious way the AL MVP race could change dramatically is a long-term injury to Judge, but that’s a long shot too. Judge has been mostly healthy for three of the last four seasons. But that might be what Witt needs, even though he’s having a great season too hitting .325 with five homers and 13 steals. That’s a fantastic pace and still nowhere near Judge.
It’s hard to call an MVP race less than a quarter into the season, but it’s hard to find a path for anyone to catch Judge barring an injury. The odds on some other great players in the AL look tempting. However, it already might be too late to catch the leader.
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