The American League Most Valuable Player Award is coming down to the wire, and sportsbooks could be headed for a split decision.
Key Takeaways
- The race for AL MVP is a tight one with only two players on the FanDuel market’s board.
- Dead-heat rules will apply at sportsbooks when it comes to a co-MVP decision.
- Judge and Raleigh have both enjoyed tremendous seasons and given voters much to think about.
With a little over a week left in MLB’s regular season, New York Yankees outfielder/DH Aaron Judge and Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh are the only two players on the board in FanDuel’s MVP futures market.
Judge holds an odds edge at -380 to take home the AL’s top award, and Raleigh is +300 to win his first MVP honor. However, there’s still a chance that the Baseball Writers Association of America’s 30 voters make the two star hitters co-MVPs. That’s never happened in the AL, and the only occurrence since 1931 came in 1979 when Keith Hernandez and Willie Stargell shared the award.
MLB recently released a poll of 14 team executives to get their takes on the AL MVP race, and Raleigh received seven votes, with one voter giving it to both of them. So, what happens if the latter officially occurs?
Read the rules
According to FanDuel, DraftKings, Caesars Sportsbook, bet365, Fanatics Sportsbook, and other U.S. sports betting operators, a dead-heat rule would apply.
“If an award or statistical category lead is shared, then bets will be settled using ‘Dead Heat’ rules,” Fanatics Sportsbook states in its house rules. “Where a market has concluded and there are more winners than were expected given the market name and terms, where no tie break exists to determine a sole winner, bets will be settled as ‘dead heat’ with stakes divided by the number of winners.”
That means the odds for the winner would be reduced. In this case, Judge bettors would receive half of the original payout at the time of the wager. The same goes for Raleigh backers.
It might be a tough pill to swallow for bettors who feel like they won the full bet because the guy they picked was named MVP, but by placing a wager, customers agree to the terms and conditions of that betting market.
Why so close?
Judge and Raleigh have both had tremendous seasons and will make it hard for the voters.
Heading into Friday’s game against the Baltimore Orioles, Judge is batting .328 with a .453 OPS and a .676 slugging percentage, the AL leader in each category. The Yankees star has hit 48 home runs, with 127 RBIs and 104 runs scored in 509 at-bats across 143 games.
Raleigh enters Friday’s contest versus the Houston Astros as the MLB leader in home runs (56) and RBIs (118). He recently surpassed Mickey Mantle for the record number of homers in a season by a switch-hitter. Raleigh’s also scored 104 runs and is second behind only Judge in bWAR and fWAR, two advanced metrics that show how important a player is to his team.
