Pittsburgh Pirates rookie ace and 2023 No. 1 overall draft pick Paul Skenes has been nothing short of a revelation this season. Despite opening the season in the minor leagues, Skenes had odds as high as 200-1 at sportsbooks to win the NL Cy Young. After throwing 8 ⅓ innings and giving up just four hits (but two runs) on Tuesday night against the St. Louis Cardinals, Skenes is down to +300 odds to win the NL Cy Young, despite suffering his first loss of the season.
Skenes has been dominant, going 6-1 with a 1.93 ERA and a microscopic 0.87 WHIP in his 12 starts. He has also gone over his strikeouts prop at sportsbooks in 10 of 12 starts, despite the number being as high as 7.5 Ks for most of them.
“I’ll stop short of calling it disastrous,” one sportsbook manager told Odds Shark on Tuesday on the prospect of Skenes winning Cy Young, “but I know I’ll be cheering against him each start.”
Pittsburgh’s flamethrower is attracting the most action for NL Cy Young as well, bringing in a leading 22.0% of the tickets and 25.1% of the handle.
In fact, Skenes to win NL Cy Young has brought in more bets than any other player to win any award. Skenes to win NL Rookie of the Year has received the third-most award tickets, with Gunnar Henderson to win AL MVP (+500) barely ahead in the second spot.
Skenes is also as high as -2000 at some sportsbooks to win the NL Rookie of the Year award, and several sportsbooks in Vegas already took down the market because it appeared that Skenes would be a runaway winner.
“We took [NL Rookie of the Year] down very early in the season,” one Vegas oddsmaker told Odds Shark. “No real liability on either the ROY or Cy Young market. I’m glad we took them down.”
Chris Sale (+140) and Zach Wheeler (+175) are the two consensus favorites ahead of Skenes for the NL Cy Young, in a race that seems to be getting closer by the day.
