There is an art to betting on MLB futures, and it has little to do with identifying who is the best at doing something; the market does that for you. In large, the players with the most “skill” sit atop the odds boards, and from a mean outcome perspective, that makes plenty of sense.
That said, in a sport like baseball where variance is king, I tend to venture down the board a bit — that is how I’ve landed on Pablo López as my favorite Cy Young value pick in 2025.
2025 AL Cy Young Award Winner: Pablo López
Before I get into why I’m backing the Minnesota Twins’ ace, it’s important to note that this is a voted-on award. In league-leader markets, the outcome is in the hands of no one but those on the field, but for an award like this, we are forced to at least consider the fact that narratives can impact ballots.
By no means am I making this bet based on story-telling, I truly think López is capable of having a breakout season that sees him outshine every other arm in the big leagues, but this bet puts me in a position to potentially benefit from such a voting pattern.
The Twins finished fourth in the AL Central a season ago, topping only the Chicago White Sox, the worst team of all time in terms of total losses (121). That’s factually accurate and while it sounds awful, it wasn’t nearly that bad.
- 10th in WAR
- 93-win pace for the middle 75% of the season
But you know what that does do? It helps fuel a narrative should the Twins have a big season. They are the favorite to win their division this season, making a 90+ win season very possible and thus putting them front and center when it comes to the “most improved” team, even if they just run a little luckier.
That’s the type of storyline that can shape narratives, and if López has a breakout season in the midst of that, we are talking about another feather in his cap.
But enough about that stuff — López is an elite arm that will be deserving of this honor without any help from the narrative street.
If we look at players with starts with at least six innings complete and seven strikeouts while not allowing more than a single earned run or one walk in 2024, we’ll see a leaderboard of …
- Pablo López: Nine (Cy Young: +2200, FanDuel)
- Paul Skenes: Eight (+200)
- Chris Sale: Eight (+1300)
- Tarik Skubal: Seven (+350)
- Bryce Miller: Seven (+4800)
- Logan Gilbert: Seven (+1200)
- Zack Wheeler: Six (+700)
49 DAYS UNTIL OUR FIRST PABLO DAY!
Pablo López has been named our Opening Day starter for the third consecutive year! pic.twitter.com/5ozJQUM70H
— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) February 6, 2025
López and Miller are the names that stand out on this list when you factor in their respective Cy Young prices this season, but they aren’t the same when it comes to an award that typically rewards volume in a big way. López has three straight 32-start seasons while Miller doesn’t have a single such season on his big league résumé.
Even if you want to hone in on the granular data, López’s career chase rate, a stat that many view as key when trying to determine who is the “best” pitcher in the game, sits at 32.1%, a tier ahead of what Miller has done up to this point (28.8%).
Much like the narrative around the Twins as a whole, López’s 2024 stat line will be judged at face value by some, and it’s not as bad as it looks.
- López vs. TB/NYY/BOS: 7.55 ERA
- López vs. everyone else: 3.38 ERA
He ran into those AL East teams at a bad time, and they inflated his numbers — it happens. The Twins only have six games against the trio before July 4 this season; if the rotation sticks as projected, López will only start in one of them (things obviously change with time, but that is just as likely to mean zero such starts as multiple).
But that’s not all. He went to his fastball more often in 2024 than in any of the four seasons previously and saw immediate returns when doing so (20.1 runs above average with the pitch; his career mark entering the season, a cumulative stat, was 12.3). I expect more of the same this year, likely at the expense of his slider, a pitch that he’s working to fade out and was his least impactful in 2024.
We also can’t rule out the role that luck played in a statistically unimpressive 2024 campaign. Only six of 61 qualified starting pitchers had a higher BABIP with men on base than López, as his rate checked in 6.8% higher than it was over the previous two seasons.
We can’t rule out the benefit of getting to share a division with the White Sox (he could face them twice in the first month of this season) nor can we dismiss the potential for an impressive win total with a closer like Jhoan Duran handling the ninth inning (23 of 25 in converting saves a season ago).
The strikeout numbers may not be as gaudy as some of his competition, but if he can continue to go deep in games, something that is very much a rare skill these days, and push his win total close to 20, why can’t he win be viewed as the top pitcher in the league should the Twins finish atop the division?
At these odds (five dollars better on FanDuel than DraftKings for those searching for value), I’m more than happy to roll the dice!
Pick: Pablo López to win the Cy Young (+2200, FanDuel)
