AL Rookie of the Year race: Updated odds, predictions, picks, favorites on June 1

Hard as it is to believe, we're nearly halfway through the 2023 MLB season. The sample size isn't so small now, meaning we can say with a bit more confidence which breakouts are for real and which slow starts may not be much of a fluke after all. The landscape has shifted quite a bit over the past few weeks – Gunnar Henderson has woken up in a big, big way, Masataka Yoshida has come back to Earth a bit, Zach Neto is on the IL for the foreseeable future and the raft of promising young stars who debuted this spring have all gone through the expected bumps in the road – and the awards race markets have responded accordingly.

So, just like we did at the beginning of June, let's celebrate the start of June with a look at how the past month has impacted the AL MVP odds over at DraftKings Sportsbook.

Updated AL ROY odds as of June 26

Josh Jung +170 Masataka Yoshida +235 Gunnar Henderson +500
Hunter Brown +1200 Bryce Miller +3000 Royce Lewis +3000
Taj Bradley +3500 Logan Allen +3500 Esteury Ruiz +4000
Tanner Bibee +4000 Yennier Cano +5000 Ryan Noda +5000

AL ROY race: Takeaways and best bets

At least according to the betting market, this is a three-man race as we approach the All-Star break. It's not hard to see why: Jung, Yoshida and Henderson have been far and away the most impressive rookie positions players. Yoshida and Jung had an absolutely scorching April and May, respectively, but they've both tapered off a bit in the month of June. The exact opposite is true for Henderson, who's erupted this month after hovering around the Mendoza Line for much of the spring.

After that, there's a pretty huge drop-off, largely due to life being very, very hard for rookie pitchers as they adjust to a new league, more advance scouting, and pitching every fifth day. Lewis has yet to lock in at the plate as he comes back from a second ACL tear, while a talented group of arms – from Brown to Miller to Bradley to the pair of Cleveland Guardians, Bibee and Allen – has watched the league adjust to them.

The top three here are prohibitive favorites, and I'd prefer Henderson even if he weren't getting the best odds. Jung's counting stats in the middle of the Texas Rangers' historically great lineup will help buoy his candidacy, but he's cooled off since his incredible May, and I still have questions about the swing-and-miss in his game and whether it will rear its head as the year progresses and pitchers adjust to him. I feel better about Yoshida's floor – he's as professional a hitter as they come – but he doesn't rack up the power or speed numbers that grab voters' attention, and he's also not nearly as valuable defensively shifting between left field and DH.

Henderson, on the other hand, plays a more premium position (even moonlighting at short on occasion) on an O's team that figures to have a much better shot at making the postseason than Boston. The top prospect has rebounded in a big way from his slow start, with a 1.007 OPS to go with six homers and three steals in his last 20 games. His ceiling is sky-high, and he's simply a more complete player than Jung or Yoshida.

Of everyone else outside the top three, though, I think Bradley offers the best value for the money at +3500. Brown is the obvious choice, and he's certainly been the more consistent pitcher to this point in the season on a team that'll need him if they hope to contend this season. Bradley, though, has upside that Brown can't match, as evidenced by his eye-popping 71 Ks in 49 innings (good for a strikeout rate in the 95th percentile). The stuff is there, and if the righty finds a way to harness his secondary pitches consistently rather than wasting them and running deep into counts, he'll have the efficiency to go with the strikeout numbers – all while pitching on a better team, at far better odds. Brown has also thrown substantially more innings to this point in the season, meaning that he's more likely to fade – or need to be shut down to avoid wearing out his arm – down the stretch.

  
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