For the first time in a long time, Shohei Ohtani has competition for MVP.<\/p>\n
Chicago Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong has ridden a hot stretch at the plate to surge up the National League MVP oddsboard, officially overtaking the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar as the favorite after he hit two home runs on Wednesday as the Cubs finished off a sweep of the World Series-favored Dodgers.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a meteoric rise for the 24-year-old, whose odds at DraftKings catapulted from +3000 on July 8 to +210 on July 26 \u2013 or from roughly 3 percent to 32 percent in implied probability. Now he\u2019s minus-money.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bettors believe that [Crow-Armstrong] is close and has a chance to overcome Ohtani. That\u2019s what we\u2019re seeing,\u201d DraftKings sportsbook director Johnny Avello told\u00a0The Athletic. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing money on one side at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NL MVP market on Kalshi is also the tightest it has been so far this season, giving Ohtani a 54 percent chance to win and Crow-Armstrong a 46 percent chance.<\/p>\n
Crow-Armstrong started to creep above 1 percent in mid-June, eventually eclipsing 10 percent by mid-July \u2013 and has been skyrocketing since. The biggest leap came in late July, when his chances rose from 23 percent to 36 percent after he went 6-for-9 with four RBIs and two home runs over two games against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The next big jump happened this week, going from 38 percent before the series with Los Angeles to 49 percent after completing the sweep of the Dodgers.<\/p>\n
The movement at sportsbooks and in prediction markets aligns with the story of Crow-Armstrong\u2019s season so far: He was hitting to the tune of a .237 average over the first two months. Since the start of June, he is up at .340 and has also added 19 of his 26 home runs. By contrast, Ohtani is .315 with 16 home runs over the same stretch.<\/p>\n
\u201cSimply put, having your name in the same conversation as someone as profound as [Ohtani] feels, it\u2019s awesome and it\u2019s a nice nod,\u201d Crow-Armstrong told reporters after Wednesday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
On the season, both have 26 home runs, while Ohtani has 70 RBIs to Crow-Armstrong\u2019s 69. Ohtani leads the NL in OPS at .954 and is second in the NL in on-base percentage at .399. Crow-Armstrong is third in OPS at .937 and fourth in OBP at .386.<\/p>\n
Ohtani has been dealing with a lingering left knee injury that has kept him off the mound since his last pitching start on July 3, though he has still played most of L.A.\u2019s game since as a designated hitter. In 14 starts over 85 2\/3 innings, Ohtani had a 1.79 ERA and 95 strikeouts.<\/p>\n
While Ohtani has pitching to add to his hitting value,\u00a0Crow-Armstrong adds a speed element to his game with 29 stolen bases, second in the NL.<\/p>\n
As quickly as this race has tightened, there are still two months before the postseason begins \u2014 who voters ultimately award could be decided by who has the biggest impact on his team\u2019s final stretch.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you judge an MVP, you have to look at what he has done for his team,\u201d Avello added. \u201cOhtani has done excellent things with the Dodgers \u2026 but when you look at the rest of that lineup \u2026 could the team still win without Ohtani? Probably, they should.<\/p>\n
\u201cCould the Cubs continue to have their winning ways and have the season they\u2019re having without Armstrong? I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a reason to have him very high in the conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time in a long time, Shohei Ohtani has competition for MVP. Chicago Cubs center fielder…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":846837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,5158,1187,591,85,23371],"class_list":["post-846836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-sports-betting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=846836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}