Ken discusses more baseball awards markets, is Paul Skenes a Vulnerable Favorite or should bettors take notice?
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00:00thing. So we find the betting market now for NL Rookie of the Year. Skeens out to minus 185,
00:05Jackson Merrill at 4 to 1, Imanaga at 5, Joey Ortiz at 11, and then we get to guys like Jared
00:11Jones, Michael Bush, Mason Wynn, and others. Yamamoto of the Dodgers expected to be out for
00:16a pretty extended period, now at 50 to 1, probably can't win. You have a really interesting take on
00:22this that I didn't think you were going to have, Ken, on NL Rookie of the Year and where we stand
00:26right now, following Imanaga's blow up and another stellar start from Skeens on Sunday night.
00:32Hashtag alliteration. Yeah, I think I was like a lot of people early in this award market. You
00:38have three pitchers at the top, Skeens, not in any order, Skeens, Imanaga, and Yamamoto.
00:44They were occupying 85% of the win probability or something like that. You see that many pitchers
00:50take that much win probability in May and early June. It seems like a really good market to go
00:55in and bet against. I think a lot of people felt the same way, and it was kind of which position
00:59players do you want? And I think even within the people who bet position players, you could argue
01:03about, well, are you a Joey Ortiz guy, or do you like Jackson Merrill, or do you like Mason Wynn,
01:08who we brought up on the show as well? Do you like Michael Bush, who got bet way early in the season
01:12and has kind of rebounded again to find his form? Who do you like of the position players? That was
01:16more the argument. Yamamoto gets hurt. He bows out. I think he's very unlikely to win. Imanaga
01:22can definitely still win. He just took a huge hit to his chances by 10 earned or 11 earned,
01:27whatever it was, in that start on Friday, or Friday or Saturday, whatever day it was,
01:32over the weekend. So he was ahead in both wars, B War and F War, baseball reference and fan graphs.
01:40You want to be number one in this among rookies. Takes a huge step backwards. I mean, he is,
01:44depending on which one you want to use, fifth, sixth now, off one start. And so a lot of ground
01:49to make up. This is why pitchers are, it's very difficult for starting pitchers to win this award.
01:54One or two blow up starts just makes it so you have no margin for error. Rookie pitchers a lot
01:58of times don't pitch very many innings. So just your, again, your margin for error is very small.
02:03So I get the position player thing to a certain extent, kind of up to like right now. Now Yamamoto
02:09is out. Now Imanaga maybe is kind of out or at least way less likely to win. So it's happened.
02:14Like as if you bet the position players, you've gotten a lot of the results that you want.
02:19Jackson Merrill was 30 a week ago. Now he's four. Like you got what you wanted. Ortiz was 30,
02:2440, 50. Now he's 11. Like you got, like you won kinda. You got what you wanted. Now we,
02:29I think we have to ask a really honest question here. And I think in both rookies of the year,
02:33it's actually a different answer now. And it wasn't before. And I think it's,
02:37is there a vulnerable favorite in the market? And I think in the AL, your answer to that can
02:42absolutely be, I think the right answer is yes. Like we talked about Louis Heal. He may not even
02:47stay in the rotation. He may take time off. There are all kinds of non-performance related reasons
02:52why the favorite for AL rookie of the year is vulnerable. And like, you can say, well,
02:56he also got lit up against the Orioles, icing on the cake. But the point is there were still
03:00a bunch of reasons to think that he was a vulnerable favorite, somebody you wanted to
03:03bet against. I think we have to be really honest about like, it is unclear whether Paul Skeens is
03:09now a vulnerable favorite. Not he's definitely not vulnerable, not he's gonna win, but like
03:15start after start, as he keeps putting up like a tremendous amount of wins above replacement in the
03:20starts that he pitches, like in his next start, it's very reasonable he'll slot in like second
03:25among all rookies in war in one more start. So like, yeah, he was way behind, and he has no margin
03:32for error. And it doesn't matter, because he just keeps doing this. So like with each start,
03:37we have to at least be like, well, it's possible. I mean, if we if we have this question about like,
03:42who's the who looks like a superstar in the National League, your number one answer is what
03:46Jeff Passan is trying to get him in the all star game. Like I just this is like, it's just a thing
03:50that's happening. And I think I always try to identify award markets first and foremost,
03:55is there a vulnerable favorite? How vulnerable do I think they are in the AL? I think Lewis
04:00Heal is insanely vulnerable. I'm dying to bet against him every day of the week right now.
04:04And I have been for a long time, and it's going great so far. And it needs to keep going great,
04:08because it's how I'm going to make a lot of money in that market in the NL. When there were the
04:11three pitchers together, and it's very early, I think that's a vulnerable situation. We don't
04:16know nearly enough at that point about the pitchers, their margin for error is very small.
04:21As skeins keep stacking performances, you'd be dumb not to change your mind at least a little
04:27bit on how possible this is, and how likely he is to win. I don't think he's a bet right now.
04:31I don't agree with the price. But if you ask me who I think the most likely player is to win this
04:36award, even if it's by a little bit over other players, I think he's the most likely player to
04:40win this award stuff can still go wrong. He can still not pitch stuff can happen,
04:44but not nearly as bullish on like dumping money into this market as the market right now.