Believe it or not, over a month of the 2026 MLB season is already complete.
While storylines have been hot and heavy already, we are starting to finally come to terms with whether some of the early-season performances are flukes or if there is actually some validity to them.
With the recent news of Tarik Skubal undergoing a procedure in his elbow to release loose bodies, the American League Cy Young Award race is now wide open.
However, I don’t want to only reference the favorites to win the award. That wouldn’t be fun. I want to highlight a couple of the longer shot arms who, I believe, have a chance to shorten the odds as we continue to progress throughout the season.
I, for one, do not believe some of the guys at the top of the list really need justification. The one-two punch of Cam Schlittler (+200) and Max Fried (+750), in New York, has been just what the Yankees needed when they were heading into the season knowing that Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon, and Clarke Schmidt were going to need some time before making their season debut.
Dylan Cease (+300) is in the first season of the seven-year, $210 million mega-deal he signed with the Blue Jays this winter and has easily surpassed expectations with how he has pitched so far this season. Then, there’s the biggest surprise of the bunch in Jose Soriano (+900) of the Los Angeles Angels.
Despite the fact that looked a bit more mortal in two of his last three starts, the 0.24 ERA in his first six outings easily justifies the current odds of him coming away with some hardware.
In all honesty, the fun part of the season for us cynical baseball fans is that we really would prefer to see the underdogs thrive, and that is why I wanted to put this article together.
Stats provided are before play on May 11.
The post The AL Cy Young Race Is Wide Open appeared first on Just Baseball.
