After a dizzying few days, the dust from the 2023 trade deadline has finally started to settle. The landscape of the league has shifted dramatically just over the last 48 hours or so: Justin Verlander is an Astro; Max Scherzer (and Jordan Montgomery) is a Ranger; the Dodgers, Rays and Orioles all found themselves a starting pitcher, while the Reds didn’t. The Angels (and Cubs) are all the way in, the Mets are all the way out, and the Twins and Yankees … apparently did not have cell reception on Tuesday afternoon. That’s a whole lot of change, and unsurprisingly, the futures market for season-ending awards has responded accordingly.
So, just like we did out of the All-Star break, let’s celebrate the start of baseball’s stretch run with a look at how the past few weeks and the trade deadline have impacted the NL Cy Young race over at DraftKings Sportsbook.
Updated NL Cy Young odds as of 8/4
Spencer Strider +225 Blake Snell +300 Zac Gallen +330
Logan Webb +850 Justin Steele +1000 Corbin Burnes +1200
Zack Wheeler +1200 Jesus Luzardo +2500 Clayton Kershaw +5000
Marcus Stroman +8000 Merrill Kelly +10000 Kodai Senga +10000
Injuries have waylaid Kershaw, Stroman and Kelly — while Verlander and Scherzer now find themselves in the opposite league — but other than that, things have mostly held steady over the last few weeks, with all of these pitchers continuing to do their thing for better or worse.
Strider remains MLB’s strikeout king, but he also continues to get bitten by the home run bug a bit too often — he’s got a 4.32 ERA over his last four starts despite a K/9 and swinging-strike rate that blow every other pitcher in baseball out of the water. Snell (and Luzardo) are just about unhittable when they throw strikes. Gallen is rock-solid but can get hit hard when his command isn’t right. Webb isn’t flashy, but he’s a preeminent workhorse, virtually guaranteeing seven solid innings every time out. Wheeler is having among the most bad-luck seasons of anyone in recent memory. Whatever you thought of all of these arms out of the All-Star break, your opinion isn’t likely to have changed much.
NL Cy Young race: Takeaways and best bets
Blake Snell, +300
This has become something of a three-horse race, and if you want to back one of the frontrunners at this point, Snell seems like the best bet. Frankly, I’m not sure why there’s a gap between the Padres lefty and Strider — the latter’s strikeout numbers are admittedly bonkers, but if the home run keeps his ERA inflated (it currently sits at 3.60) that will likely sink his candidacy. Snell, meanwhile, has the lowest ERA in baseball at 2.50, and that number lowers all the way to a scarcely-believable 0.73 when you consider just his last 13 starts.
His K/9 and swinging-strike rate are behind only Strider, and his batting average against is second only to Burnes (more on him in a second). The WHIP remains a bit ugly thanks to a league-leading 68 walks, and Snell’s strand rate suggests that he’s gotten a bit lucky that more of those baserunners haven’t come around to score. But it’s awfully hard to score on a pitcher you can’t hit, and if he keeps this up for the next two months, Snell has the most well-rounded statistical case of any of the three favorites.
Corbin Burnes, +1200
More or less written off after a slow start to the year, the 2021 NL Cy Young winner is coming alive at just the right time. Burnes’ numbers across six July starts: 1.85 ERA, 0.718 WHIP, .115 batting average against and 47 Ks in 39 innings. He dug himself a bit of a hole over the first three months, but he’s already close enough to the leaders in most statistical categories — he’s ninth in ERA and leads the league in WHIP — that he can absolutely catch them if he keeps pitching like this. He’ll never have Strider’s numbers, but he could have significantly better ratios, while Snell does run the risk of watching his ERA come back to Earth as a greater percentage of his free passes turn into runs scored. The Milwaukee Brewers are in the thick of the NL playoff picture, too, meaning Burnes will be making tons of big starts down the stretch — and is the best long-shot on the board.