Matt Olson Undervalued as AL MVP Candidate

Matt Olson is having a fantastic year for the Oakland Athletics and nobody is talking about it. 

The A’s, who are tied with the Houston Astros for the lead in the AL West, have one of the best home run hitters in baseball in Olson, but WynnBET has his AL MVP odds at just +5000 for this season. That’s right, Olson is tied for the 33rd-best odds in the American League despite hitting his 20th homer of the season on Sunday.

I had picked Olson as a dark horse to lead the MLB in home runs this month, and he has delivered so far with seven homers in the first three weeks of June. On top of that, Olson is hitting .305 with 53 runs batted in and has already totaled 74 hits in 67 games. 

I’m not going to say he should be above Shohei Ohtani or Vlad Guerrero Jr. in the MVP standings, but 33rd is straight up disrespectful. 

Olson has been the best player on a playoff team, and there are several names on the list above him that simply haven’t had close to the same production this year including Gleyber Torres (+1000), Alex Bregman (+3000), Joey Gallo (+1000) and many more. 

Gallo, for example, is another lefty power bat but he’s hitting just .220 with 12 homers so far this season. Olson has been astronomically better and for a better team, yet his odds are five-times worse? That seems crazy to me. 

Ohtani and Guerrero Jr. have tried to make this a two-man race, but if Olson keeps hitting homers, he’s going to find himself in the running later in the year. 

Just look at what his last 162 games were prior to last week:

That’s pretty damn good. At +5000 odds, I can’t help but think there’s a chance that Olson could make a small bet very worth it. The favorites are who they are and have shown no sign of stopping, but you’d be hard pressed to find a better value than Olson to win AL MVP.