Can Paul Skenes Win the 2025 NL Cy Young? Latest Odds & Predictions Entering Sophomore Season
There's finally something for Pittsburgh Pirates fans to cheer about ahead of an MLB season. The best pitcher in baseball may very well be on their team.
Paul Skenes is coming off one of the greatest rookie seasons we've ever seen from a pitcher. As a result, he serves as the favorite in the National League to win the Cy Young with spring training about to begin.
We're looking at the latest Paul Skenes Cy Young odds to determine if you should be betting on him to win the award, or if his status as the favorite is built off too much hype and not enough substance.
Cy Young odds 2025
Here are the latest Cy Young odds from our best MLB betting sites.
Paul Skenes Cy Young odds 2025
| Sportsbook | Odds | Implied probability | Profit ($10) |
|---|---|---|---|
| DraftKings | +300 | 25% | $30 |
| FanDuel | +220 | 31.25% | $22 |
| BetMGM | +210 | 32.26% | $21 |
| Caesars | +250 | 28.57% | $25 |
| bet365 | +300 | 25% | $30 |
One year removed from his brilliant rookie campaign, Skenes is the favorite in the NL by the Cy Young odds.
However, as is always the case, there's a significant difference between the worst and best price, so you need to make sure you're shopping for odds across our best sports betting sites. As you can see, you're sacrificing $9 (or nearly an entire third of potential profit) when placing a $10 wager at BetMGM rather than going to DraftKings or bet365.
The latter has adjusted its cashout options in the last year or so, making the payout less lucrative. However, bet365 is still the better option than DraftKings from my experience, so I'd make this wager there.
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Paul Skenes Cy Young odds movement
Opening Cy Young odds
This market opened with Skenes as long as +425 before moving to the significantly shorter option of +300. That movement is justified based on the projections.
Nearly every major projection model forecasts Skenes to be No. 1 among all pitchers by fWAR in 2025. For its part, Steamer projects him to finish with a 2.80 ERA and 2.67 FIP across 188 innings. Incredibly, those top-tier numbers would represent significant regression for Skenes.
So you're laughing now if you jumped at Skenes' NL Cy Young odds as soon as the market opened. I don't think we'll get him at that +425 price throughout the season unless he suffers a major stumble.
Will Paul Skenes win the NL Cy Young in 2025?
History of pitchers who won Rookie of the Year
To find the last five starting pitchers to win MLB Rookie of the Year, you need to go all the way back to 2003. Prior to Skenes (and Luis Gil), a pitcher hadn't managed to win the award since 2016.
Let's look at those five starters to be crowned the best rookie in their respective leagues from 2003 to 2016, and see how their sophomore campaign went.
Michael Fulmer (2016 AL Rookie of the Year) 📉
Fulmer burst onto the scene with the Detroit Tigers, managing a 3.06 ERA and 1.12 WHIP in his rookie season. However, his second year in the majors was a sign of what was to come, with Fulmer's less-than-stellar peripherals as a rookie catching up with him.
His ERA jumped from that 3.06 mark to 3.83 in Year 2, and he struck out more than one full batter less per nine innings (7.47 in his rookie year to 6.23). Fulmer did make the All-Star Game in 2017, but he never came close to another piece of hardware after finishing 10th in Cy Young voting after his rookie season.
Jacob deGrom (2014 NL Rookie of the Year) 📈
Here's the obvious outlier among these names, and he perhaps serves as the best comparison for Skenes as one of this era's greatest pitchers.
deGrom's rookie campaign was just a taste of what we could expect from him, as he managed a 2.69 ERA and 9.24 K/9 while accruing 3.6 fWAR across 140 1/3 innings.
He then went from a promising rookie to a star pitcher. deGrom made the All-Star game after racking up 205 strikeouts across 191 innings, finishing with a 2.54 ERA and a sparkling 0.98 WHIP.
However, despite improving upon his rookie campaign, deGrom still finished seventh in NL Cy Young voting. He didn't win the award until his fifth season in 2018.
Jose Fernandez (2013 NL Rookie of the Year)
Of course, we were never able to see what Fernandez was truly capable of due to his untimely death in 2016. He was able to log only two healthy seasons before that: his first, and his last.
Fernandez managed to pitch only 51 2/3 innings before suffering a torn UCL during his 2014 sophomore campaign.
He was a machine prior to that though, racking up 12.19 K/9 to go with a 0.95 WHIP and still-elite 2.44 ERA.
Had he not become injured, Fernandez may have once again been in the NL Cy Young conversation after finishing third in his rookie year.
Jeremy Hellickson (2011 AL Rookie of the Year) 📉
The reality is that Hellickson was never really that good.
Just a 5.57 K/9 during his rookie year came with the hurler's 2.95 ERA, along with a very low .223 BABIP. Regression hit him like a Mack Truck.
Despite managing a 3.10 ERA in his second season, Hellickson accrued only 0.8 fWAR due to a bloated WHIP and 4.60 FIP. However, he did win a Gold Glove during that campaign, but it would be the last piece of individual hardware Hellickson ever came close to securing.
Dontrelle Willis (2003 NL Rookie of the Year) 📉
The D-Train is likely one of your favorite pitchers if you're around the same age as me. He had a funky delivery, a great nickname, and, most importantly, Willis absolutely shoved.
Willis finished 34th in the NL MVP race during his rookie season, and he also made the All-Star team. His 7.95 K/9 registered as his career high, but he was largely unable to live up to that billing during his second season.
The southpaw did produce a truly spectacular third year to finish second in the NL Cy Young race and 11th in MVP voting. But we're more concerned with his sophomore campaign that was relatively underwhelming.
My best bets & predictions for Paul Skenes
Paul Skenes Over 209.5 strikeouts (-106 via FanDuel)
This is my favorite bet for anything Skenes-related, as we're getting a massive cushion between this total from FanDuel and the right-hander's projected strikeout total of 242 from Steamer.
These odds also suggest Skenes is getting just a 51.46% implied probability of finishing with exactly 40 more strikeouts than he posted as a rookie. However, if healthy he'll likely pitch close to 50 innings more than he did during his first season.
Some of the more conservative projection models are showing Skenes finishing with just more than the 210 he needs. So I have something else that'll likely interest you instead if you're a bit hesitant to take the plunge at these minus-money odds.
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Paul Skenes regular-season strikeouts leader (+475 via Caesars)
The inherent risk with any regular-season leader bet is that the player will suffer a long-term injury.
But if Skenes does win the NL Cy Young, it'll likely be because he was able to remain relatively healthy and pitch around 180 innings. And if he reaches that mark, I can't see many pitchers challenging him for the strikeout crown.
This market will likely come down to who can pitch more innings between Skenes and Boston Red Sox ace Garrett Crochet, both of whom were on an innings limit last season.
Sure, it's a gamble to pit Skenes against the rest of the league rather than just the NL, as would be the case if you bet on his +300 Cy Young odds. But if I'm going to chase a big plus-money futures bet on the young ace, I'd prefer to get better than 50% more potential profit - which is an additional $17.50 on top of that aforementioned $30.
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MLB Cy Young FAQs
Who are the Cy Young award odds favorites?
Tarik Skubal is the favorite in the AL while getting +425 odds, which leads to an implied probability of 19.05%.
Meanwhile, Paul Skenes is the front-runner in the NL while receiving +350 odds, leading to a probability of 22.22%.
Who won the Cy Young awards last year?
Tarik Skubal of the Detroit Tigers won the American League Cy Young award in 2024.
Atlanta Braves southpaw Chris Sale took home the award for the National League.
When will the Cy Young winners be announced?
The 2024 Cy Young Award winners were announced on Wednesday, Nov. 20.
How does Cy Young voting work?
The Cy Young awards are given out based on the voting from members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America. Writers from NL cities vote for the NL Cy Young, and the same is true for AL writers. In total, there are 30 votes tied to each award, with one representative from each team.
Writers submit their ballots before the beginning of the posteason. They rank their top-five selections, and points are given in descending order (first place gets seven points, second place gets four, third place gets three, fourth place gets two, and fifth place gets one). The player with the most points wins.
The award is shared if there's a tie.
Who has won the most Cy Young awards?
Roger Clemens, seven, won more Cy Young awards than any other pitcher in MLB history. Randy Johnson, five, is second on the all-time list.
MLB betting odds pages
Here are some of our best MLB odds pages ahead of the 2025 MLB season. Be sure to follow the rest of our MLB picks as we approach Opening Day on March 27.
Best MLB betting sites
Looking to bet on Paul Skenes or any other MLB player? Here are our best sports betting sites for betting on baseball as determined by our Sportsbook Review experts, along with the best sportsbook promos currently available right now.
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