Framber Valdez AL Cy Young odds, betting action skyrocket after no-hitter -- for good reason

On the last day of July, Framber Valdez was tied for the fourth-shortest AL Cy Young odds at +1000. After his masterful no-hitter against the Guardians on Tuesday night in which he needed just 93 pitches and faced the minimum 27 batters, the Astros ace has trimmed his odds on BetMGM to +550.

Rarely do we see a player basically cut their odds in half in an MLB award futures race, especially in August. Valdez leapfrogged Rays ace Shane McClanahan (+600), who served as the favorite for the majority of the first three months of the 2023 season. He also left Mariners ace Luis Castillo (+1200), Rangers stud Nate Eovaldi (+1400), and runaway MVP Shohei Ohtani (+2000) in his Cy Young dust.

An unprecedented night calls for an unprecedented odds shift. No lefthander in Astros history has ever thrown a no-hitter, and this is an organization that has 16 no-nos to its name. Valdez also challenged the record for the fewest pitches in a no-hitter, and his 93 ranks as the fourth fewest. Check out the company the 29-year-old southpaw finds himself in:

The lone baserunner the Dominican native allowed Tuesday night was Oscar Gonzalez via a leadoff walk in the top of the fifth inning. The 12 batters before Gonzalez — and the 14 after him — all failed to reach. Valdez even induced a double play to retire Gonzalez, which ultimately paved the way for the Astros ace to become the first pitcher to ever face the minimum 27 batters in a non-perfect game.

So, yeah, Valdez put himself in incredible company with that no-no. Between the 10 other pitchers on the list above, there are a combined 31 All-Star appearances, 13 World Series pennants, and seven Cy Young awards (oh, and an MVP — hey, Sandy!). Include Valdez in that mix, and you can add two All-Star Games and one World Series championship, but he's still looking for his first Cy Young. 

Could his gem on Tuesday night have been the turning point of the 2023 AL Cy Young race? That's what the sportsbooks and betting public sure seem to think. Valdez's drastically reduced odds suggest two things:

1. BetMGM believes he has become a frontrunner to win the award.
2. Bettors have begun flocking to the books to wager on him, increasing BetMGM's Valdez-related liability.

In fact, our friend John Ewing of BetMGM gave us the inside scoop on the AL Cy Young betting ticket and handle percentages between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. Since the no-hitter, a whopping 42 percent of AL Cy Young bets and incredible 68 percent of AL Cy Young money has been on Valdez.

Gerrit Cole (+110) still holds the shortest odds, and Shane McClanahan (+600) remains BetMGM's biggest liability thanks to all of the action he garnered earlier in the season. Believe it or not, Ohtani appears on the most tickets (11.7 percent, probably partly due to parlay specials with him winning both MVP and Cy Young). However, if Valdez keeps this up, he could very easily become the top dog in odds, liability, and ticket percentage.

Honestly, we might be right there with the public on the Valdez hype train. Looking at the Astros, the other contenders, and Valdez's career numbers late in the season, he might legitimately be the best bet to win the highest pitching honor in the AL. Let's first take a look at the odds board, then discuss why Valdez at +550 is actually not an outrageously bad value. 

Cole's Yankees have been in a tailspin, losing 14 of their past 21 games and sitting in the cellar of the AL East. The Yankees ace has just one win over his past three starts and could easily fall out of first in this race like he has so many other seasons (he has finished as Cy Young runner-up twice and top five in voting five times).

Gausman has similarly had a tough time bagging wins, with Toronto losing four of his past five starts. The Jays ace also has a worse ERA and WHIP than Valdez, and we're wary of trusting him after his ERA and WHIP both bloated out toward the end of last season.

McClanahan hasn't looked right since he started dealing with back issues in late June. After allowing three earned runs or fewer in 15 of his first 16 starts this season (1.4 earned runs per game), he has allowed four or more runs in two of his past four outings and averaged 3.5 earned runs per game during that timeframe. The Rays offense has also cooled off considerably, and Baltimore has jumped Tampa for the best record in the AL.

Ohtani, meanwhile, will likely earn his second unanimous MVP selection but doesn't quite have the across-the-board statistical dominance needed to win Cy Young. As cool of a story as it would be, this doesn't seem to be the year that we see him take down both awards. We won't rule it out in the future, though, because, ya know, he's not human. 

Valdez doesn't just have the eye-popping no-hitter to back him in this race. He's also third in the AL in pitching bWAR (3.3), fifth in ERA (3.07), seventh in wins (7), and ninth in WHIP (1.07). That's despite some struggles in July. If he has righted the ship and rounded the corner to his best form (as certainly seemed to be the case on Tuesday), he could very well sprint toward the Cy Young finish line over the next two months.

In fact, August has traditionally been his most dominant month. Check out Valdez's career numbers in August as compared to the earlier months of the season:

It's clearly the most wonderful time of the year for Valdez, and this is also the perfect time for him to make a case for himself. As his skyrocketing odds suggest, this race should still be regarded as one that's there for the taking.

Cole in no way has Cy Young locked up. History has proved he's a better bet to slip out of first place in the race than he is to win it, and McClanahan and Gausman have worse career numbers in August and pitch for teams that are not as set up for success the rest of the way as the defending-champion Astros. 

Valdez might not seem like a great bet at +550 — perhaps you'd rather wait until the smoke has cleared from his no-hitter — but we also wouldn't bet any of the other pitchers in this race to beat him out. All signs point to the 29-year-old lefty continuing his collision course with history while the Astros gun for the best record in the AL.

Just like MLB fans realized after Valdez's seventh no-hit inning last night, at which point he had thrown just 71 pitches: It's not just a fun storyline — it's the one that seems most likely to play out.