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MVP has always been one of my favorite acronyms. Honestly, it’s right up there with BRB, ICYMI and IMHO in the acronym Hall of Fame. MVP is also one of the many MLB awards that you can bet on using the DraftKings Sportsbook, so it has that going for it, too.
Let’s take a closer look at who could go home with some hardware at season’s end in the American League.
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American League MVP
Boring Bet: Julio Rodriguez (+600)
There’s been some serious line movement on Julio, as the 23-year-old was +1000 less than a week ago. I can see why people were attracted to that number. At its core, MVP is an award about ceiling. For as great as consistency and floor are in a 162-game campaign, MVP is about who can reach the highest highs. In the case of Rodriguez, we saw what those highs can look like in 2023. Let’s rewind. At the mid-way point of his sophomore season, Rodriguez was, well, bad. Sitting at the All-Star break, across 397 plate appearances, the outfielder was slashing .249/.310/.411 with a 103 wRC+. Then August happened. Julio hit .429 with 17 extra-base hits and 11 stolen bases. He completely salvaged his entire year with a month that most players can only dream of.
When 2023 was all said and done, Rodriguez finished fourth in the American League in fWAR (5.9) and as one of four players in baseball to go 30/30. To recap, those were his results in his age-22 campaign after digging himself a hole for three months to start things off. Just imagine what Rodriguez’s numbers could be if he was feeling it for a whole season. The specter of Shohei Ohtani no longer looms over the AL. This year’s MVP race is wide open and Rodriguez has just as much raw talent as anyone in the field. The Mariners, who had a shot to win the West all the way up to the final weekend of last season, should also be in the thick of the playoff hunt in 2024 — especially if Rodriguez hits his peak. Put it all together and it’s a pretty enticing package.
Interesting Bet: Gunnar Henderson (+1500)
In a weird way, Henderson has a very similar case to Rodriguez. He’ll be 23 in June, he’s about to enter his third year at the MLB level — Henderson appeared in 34 games in 2022 — and he found amazing success in 2023 despite an inauspicious start. Over Henderson’s first 50 games, a span of 184 plate appearances, the left-handed hitter slashed .201/.332/.370 with a .312 wOBA and a 100 wRC+. Over the next 100 games? The former top prospect matched a .276 average with a .259 ISO to produce a 133 wRC+. Not only was that stretch good enough to secure Henderson the AL Rookie of the Year, but it got him some down-ballot MVP votes. All in all, he finished eighth, just ahead of teammate Adley Rutschman.
Obviously, there’s still room for growth with Henderson. His strikeout rate is well-above league average and he struggled mightily with left-handed pitching in 2023. If he shores up either of those issues in 2024, the sky is the limit. Also working in Henderson’s favor is a full-time shift to shortstop. Not only is that a premium position that tends to be looked upon in high regard by voters, but it just seems like Henderson is more polished there than at third base. To wit, Henderson logged just under 600 innings at each position last season. While he saved three runs by DRS at third, he saved 10 runs at short. If you’re looking for a way for his 4.6 fWAR to jump by a couple wins, you don’t have to look much further than that.
Longshot Bet: Jose Altuve (+4000)
I’m not sure who needs to hear this, but Jose Altuve is still really, really good at baseball. A broken hand in the World Baseball Classic cost the veteran the first two months of his season in 2023, yet Altuve still wound up with a 4.0 fWAR in just 90 games. How does that happen? Well, slashing .311/.393/.522 with a 154 wRC+ probably has something to do with it. This isn’t a blip on the radar, either. Even putting aside his MVP in 2017, Altuve has shown recently that he remains one of the league’s best players, despite now being well into his 30s. In fact, since the beginning of 2021, Altuve ranks ninth in baseball in fWAR (15.9). In that same span, his 147 wRC+ sits 10th.
Honestly, age probably isn’t the biggest red flag for Altuve. It’s his uniform. I mean that in two extremely different ways, too. While the Astros are very likely to be a World Series contender in 2024, that level of success is due to more than just a single player. There’s a reason Yordan Alvarez (+800) and Kyle Tucker (+1700) have better odds than Altuve for this award, and all three could end up splitting votes. Also, much like Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart, there’s the faint sound of a banging trash can that forever complicates Altuve’s candidacy. Are most people over the cheating scandal? I think so. Yet the writers that vote on these awards tend to have a long memory. As we’ve seen with Cooperstown, these things matter — especially in baseball.
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I am a promoter at DraftKings and am also an avid fan and user (my username is theglt13) and I may sometimes play on my personal account in the games that I offer advice on. Although I have expressed my personal view on the games and strategies above, they do not necessarily reflect the view(s) of DraftKings and I may also deploy different players and strategies than what I recommend above. I am not an employee of DraftKings and do not have access to any non-public information.