MLB futures: NL Cy Young race is wide open, and full of opportunities

As this is being written, the reigning Cy Young winner in the National League, Blake Snell, is without a team. Now odds are that the Yankees will sign him meaning that a back-to-back win for the prestigious pitching champion is unlikely. Corbin Burnes won the award a couple of years ago and he is in the AL with Baltimore now too so a repeat winner in the NL is very unlikely.

With Sandy Alcantara out for the year (2022 winner), the only real hope for a repeat NL Cy Young winner this season is Clayton Kershaw. That is hard to believe, but so much pitching talent has exited the NL of late (Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander and Jacob deGrom all left last year). 

There is nothing better than a wide-open race though, right?  Here are the pitchers worth building a portfolio around. 

NL Cy Young Best Bets

Spencer Strider, SP, Atlanta Braves +550 (Best Bet)

You can make an easy argument that Strider should have won the award last year, his first full season in the majors — as he led in wins and strikeouts. He is in his age 25 season and has a very real chance to hit the 300 K mark if the Braves are willing to let him pitch just a little bit more. Atlanta is in the hunt too so getting another 20 wins is a very realistic outcome too. There is basically no argument against Strider which is why he is at the top of the odds table. 

Yoshinobu Yamamoto, SP, Los Angeles Dodgers +1300

The Dodgers collected a lot of talent over the offseason. Yamamoto dominated in Japan and he is expected to do the same with the way they are paying him in Los Angeles. It is not uncommon for pitchers to come from afar and have immediate success and being on a winning team will only help. He might win 16 games even if he is just average. The questions are how much does he pitch and how does he respond to getting hit. That didn't happen much in Japan. 

Kodai Senga, SP, New York Mets +1500 (Sleeperish)

The Mets were a mess last season but it was not Senga's fault. He quickly established that he was MLB-ready and posted a sub-3 ERA with more than 200 strikeouts. Senga had a lot of success in Japan but was not as dominant as Yamamoto was over there (that is part of the reason folks are so high on YY). However, he is more used to what pitching in the majors is like and that is valuable. If the Mets are better (how could they be worse?), he can post really strong numbers. 

Eduardo Rodriguez, SP, Arizona Diamondbacks +3000

Rodriguez is a winner and I like the move to Arizona. Last year he somehow won 13 games with Detroit and I think he is a sneaky candidate to lead the league in wins (he won 19 games with Boston not all that long ago). He is going to need to pile up the wins to stay in the conversation because the K numbers will not be there as they are with other candidates. At this price point, the candidates are not going to have "everything."

Chris Sale, SP, Atlanta Braves +7500

Sale pitched 100 innings last season for the first time since 2019. I like the move to Atlanta for him, they are a much better team and there will be some lack of familiarity advantage for him in the NL. Atlanta is loaded too, so as long as he takes the ball regularly he will post a good won-loss record. He might not dominate like he once did but he can post more than a K per inning. He could definitely have a season like Snell did last year.