The Phillies have three players listed at +4000 or lower to win the National League Cy Young Award.

It’s still very, very, early, but as we start to wade into MLB futures, this one stands out in particular because the Phillies have a handful of contenders.

It’s absolutely not a surprise to anyone that Paul Skenes enters the regular season as the NL Cy Young favorite.

It’s very easy to be a contrarian on Skenes, though, because this will be his first full season in the majors. There’s a deeper scouting report on him, and while the strikeouts will be there, he most certainly will not be playing on a winning team.

Zack Wheeler is the second favorite behind Skenes at all sportsbooks, but the number varies. He is +600 at FanDuel, but +750 at DraftKings, and somewhere in between on other Pennsylvania and NJ betting apps.


Cristopher Sanchez and Aaron Nola are both +4000 at DraftKings to take home the honor. There’s a wider gap between the two at FanDuel, where Sanchez is +2500 and Nola is +6000.

Just to make sure everyone is included, Ranger Suarez is +9000 at DK and +20000 at FD, but he’s not the left-hander generating the buzz down in Clearwater.

Sanchez is the buzz guy right now for the Phillies, and if you go through his 2024 numbers, there’s reason to hope he can take it up another level.

Sanchez put up Cy Young-esque numbers inside Citizens Bank Park, a known hitters’ park by the way, with a 2.21 ERA, a 7-3 record, 99 strikeouts and a .222 batting average against.

Chris Sale won the NL CY Young last season with a 2.38 ERA and 225 strikeouts across 177.2 innings.

If Sanchez replicated his home numbers on the road, he’d be right in the area code of Sale’s numbers.

So it seems simple for Sanchez, right? Become a more complete pitcher and instantly make a rise up the list of the NL’s elite hurlers.

The minimum requirement to win the NL Cy Young over the last four seasons was a 2.43 ERA or lower and at least 200 strikeouts. Wins aren’t the be all, end all because Sale was the only Cy Young winner in that quartet to earn more than 15 victories.

Nola’s had at least 197 Ks in each of his last four seasons, but his ERA hasn’t been under 3.00 since the 2018 campaign.

Wheeler is the far better candidate to fit those trends than Nola. Wheeler finished with an ERA under 2.85 and with 200+ strikeouts in three of the last four seasons.

Suarez recorded the highest strikeout total of his career and second-best ERA in 2024, but he’s going to need an uber-spectacular season to compete with the top three arms.

For what it’s worth, getting to the key numbers basically puts you into the Cy Young conversation. Six NL pitchers hit the 200-strikeout mark last season and only Sale had an ERA under 2.50. Wheeler, Shota Imanaga, and Michael King were the only others with ERAs under 3.00.