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 won two of the past 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.
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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 to -1100 to win AL MVP. That’s pretty close to being a lock, even with nearly five months left in the season.
Aaron Judge has a huge MVP lead
The implied odds of a -1100 favorite winning are 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.
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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 since Ted Williams in 1957.
Even by Judge’s standards, 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 that there is only one contender even close to Judge.
Who could catch Judge?
It’s not just that Judge has a big lead in the AL MVP race; it’s that there aren’t multiple players anywhere near him in the odds. The odds at BetMGM indicate that it’s a two-man race for AL MVP, with Judge having a massive lead over Kansas City Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr.
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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. But 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 past 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 also difficult to find a path for anyone to catch Judge, barring a major injury. The odds on some other great players in the AL look tempting. However, it already might be too late to catch the leader.