Best Longshot Baseball Bets for the 2020 MLB Season
Cy Young candidates Max Scherzer, Gerrit Cole and Clayton Kershaw are all slated to take the mound Thursday, but before they do, here are five longshot MLB bets to consider at online sports betting sites.
Also read: MLB Opening Day Lines and Betting Picks
Best Longshot MLB Bets for the 2020 Season
Bet on Relievers to Win Cy Young
An interesting Cy Young angle floating around is to bet on some key relievers to win the award. Nine relievers have won the award since 1974, but the first modern closer to win the award was Dennis Eckersley in 1992. Eckersley won both the AL Cy Young and MVP that year. Since then, a reliever has only walked away with the Cy Young once more, Eric Gagne in 2003. However, if there were ever a year for it to happen again it would be in 2020.
In this peculiar, abbreviated season, relievers can make a stronger Cy Young case than usual, especially from teams who are more likely to turn to their bullpens due to current circumstances. Kirby Yates +15000, Edwin Diaz +15000, Aroldis Chapman +15000, and Liam Hendricks +15000 are all relievers that come to mind who could make a push for the Cy Young, but the reliever who has the best chance is Milwaukee Brewers’ two-time All-Star Josh Hader +6600 at FOX Bet. As RotoGrinders DFS expert Dave Potts previously explained, the Brewers are likely to lean heavily on their relievers just as they have the last couple of seasons. In 2019, Brewers starters averaged only 4.9 innings per start, leaving their bullpen with the second most Wins in Relief in baseball.
Hader is my favorite reliever Cy Young bet but Kirby Yates +15000 is particularly interesting over at BetMGM, compared to +8000 at FanDuel. For one, the young San Diego Padres team could make noise in the National League this season. If so, Yates will certainly play a big part in their success. Secondly, Yates finished ninth in Cy Young voting just last year while leading the MLB with 41 saves—on 44 opportunities!
[Bet on Josh Hader +6600 to Win Cy Young at FOX Bet!]
[Bet on Kirby Yates +15000 to Win Cy Young at BetMGM!]
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. +4500 Most Home Runs
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit only 15 home runs in his rookie season, but we know he has plenty of power, and a season of experience swinging at big-league stuff should pay dividends for this superstar in the making.
There are some unknowns for both this betting market and for Guerrero in particular. First, Mike Trout 2020 MLB presence has been up in the air with understandable concerns regarding playing while his wife his due to deliver the couple’s first child in August. Obviously Trout out of the equation would help pretty much every other betting candidate but it does appear Trout will be ready to go on Opening Day. More importantly, we need to look at where the Blue Jays will be playing now that the city of Toronto announced they will not open Rogers Centre for the team. Instead of playing at Rogers Centre, which ranked 1st in home run factor, the Jays will might play south of the border in Buffalo at their minor league ballpark, Sahlen Field. RotoGrinders contributor and MLB DFS expert Derek Carty astutely breaks down the change of scenery and its implications here.
Let’s roll with Guerrero and hope it ends up being as friendly as Carty cautiously projects.
Update: We still don’t know where the Jays will be playing their home games.
[Bet Vlad Jr. +4500 to Hit the Most Home Runs at PointsBet!]
Yu Darvish +2500 to Win NL Cy Young
Yu Darvish struggled early in 2019 but was able to turn things back around during the last half of the season. Even with a slow start, Darvish improved in his second year with the Cubs, starting 31 games and allowing a 3.98 ERA. That number might not sound great but consider the fact that his ERA was 5.40 through the first week of May before you rush to judgment. Darvish was still able to end the season 15th in WHIP and 5th in Hard-Hit Rate. Darvish sat behind only Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander in a couple of advanced pitching statistics such as his SIERA and xFIP . +2500 at BetMGM, the Cubs’ ace pitcher could be flying under the radar in the Cy Young race, especially if he can pick up where we left off last year.
[Bet on Yu Darvish +2500 to Win Cy Young at BetMGM!]
Bet on a Starting Pitcher to Win MVP
This is a bit inconsistent with our previous thesis. If we think a reliever can win Cy Young over starters then how can a starting pitcher win MVP? Well, don’t hold your breath on both happening, but there’s nothing wrong with spreading our chips around. The point behind both of these bets is that a 60-game season opens up various possibilities that wouldn’t have warranted consideration if it wasn’t 2020. Anyways, here’s the thinking behind a starting pitcher winning MVP that Derek Carty laid out in my interview with him and David Potts regarding MLB futures: “If, say, deGrom gives up six runs all year and finishes with like a 0.70 ERA, that’s going to look really good and will be hard for voters to ignore, especially when the league leader in home runs finishes with maybe 22 or the RBI leader with 45.”
Carty might be onto something; however, my bet isn’t on deGrom, it’s on Gerrit Cole.
Debuting in pinstripes this Thursday in a prime-time revenge game against the defending champion Washington Nationals and Max Scherzer, Cole isn’t only likely to be the most talked-about pitcher in the league but he’s also as capable as anyone of pitching a historically great season, one impressive enough to enter the MVP conversation. Just last year Cole’s 326 strikeouts were the most by a righty since Nolan Ryan in 1997, and his strikeout rate was one of the highest ever. The Yankees rotation is thinner than expected after losing Luis Severino to Tommy John surgery. If the Severino-less Yankees are as successful as oddsmakers expect Cole will get plenty of credit in the process, and rightfully so.
[Bet on Gerrit Cole +5000 to Win MVP at DraftKings Sportsbook!]
Texas Rangers +1800 to Win the AL West
Combining David Potts’ recommendations that there’s 1) value in betting on longshots to win their division during a shortened, noisier season and 2) to keep our eyes on the Texas Rangers, I’m betting on the Rangers to come out on top of the AL West. The Rangers added Corey Kluber to the rotation, plus they have batters that can get hot like Joey Gallo, Roughned Odor, and Willie Calhoun. This season will have at least a surprise or two and the Rangers could be one of them.
[Bet on the Rangers +1800 to Win the AL West at FanDuel Sportsbook!]