NL Cy Young Odds: The 2026 AI Model Verdict

If you play MLB DFS, you already know which arm the market wants you to pay for. The Kalshi NL Cy Young board has picked one, too, and it is not close: Jacob Misiorowski at 80 cents, with the entire rest of the National League splitting the change. I put that whole 45-pitcher board in front of six AI models without letting any of them see a single price, and asked them to score the race the way you would read a pitching slate. They came back endorsing Misiorowski as the best arm in the league and still writing his number down by more than 20 points. The gap between what the market pays for an ace and what the season actually owes him is the whole story below.

The Quick Answer

In the Kalshi NL Cy Young market, traders make Jacob Misiorowski a runaway favorite at 80 cents, roughly 64% once the board overround is removed. Our price-blind, six-model panel agrees he is the class of the field but blends him to 40.7%, then hands the leftover probability to a chase pack the market barely prices: Chris Sale at 12.6%, Cristopher Sanchez at 10.4%, and rookie Chase Burns at 7.6% against a price near 1.2%. The full board, the case for each call, and a worked de-vig example are all below.

• Market Favorite: Jacob Misiorowski, 80¢ (about 64% de-vigged)
• Model Favorite: Jacob Misiorowski, 40.7% blend, well below his price
• The Biggest Lean Up: Chase Burns, 7.6% blend against a ~1.2% price, and Chris Sale at 12.6% versus 6.9%
• The Value Read: the chase pack (Sale, Sanchez, Burns, Wheeler, Yamamoto) collectively priced near nothing
• The Low-Innings Dark Horse: Shohei Ohtani, 3.9% blend on a 1.79 ERA in limited work
• The Split: how much of a rookie's career-high workload to trust over nine more starts

Want the re-scored board when the innings start piling up? We grade every one of these calls in public once the market settles. The full graded record is linked below, and this page refreshes as prices move through the stretch run.

New to Kalshi event markets? Start with our plain-English guide to how to bet sports on Kalshi before you read the board. One soft pointer, then we get to the numbers.

The Market Card

These are model estimates, not predictions of fact and not financial advice. Kalshi event contracts trade on a CFTC-regulated exchange; you must be 18+ and in an eligible state to participate.

The Board

Here is the top of the field: each pitcher's current 2026 line, the market price, and the panel's blended estimate. The wide per-model table is further down.

Market figures are the latest Kalshi prices as of August 5, 2026; the full 46-contract board sums to about 124 cents, an overround worked through below. One more caution: only the favorite's contract carries real volume. Away from Misiorowski the book is thin and quotes sit near a one-cent floor, so read the longshot prices as a directional snapshot, not a deep two-sided market. These are model estimates, not predictions of fact and not financial advice.

Why The Panel Fades The 80-Cent Ace

Start with the number the models did not argue about: Misiorowski is pitching like the best arm in the National League, and every seat said so. He leads the league in ERA at 1.63, in strikeouts at 195, and in WHIP at 0.73, all at once, over a real 127-inning workload. That across-the-board line is the exact shape a Cy Young case takes, and it is why the market is comfortable at 80 cents. In DFS terms, this is the arm you build around: elite strikeout volume plus ratios that almost never blow up your lineup.

So why does the panel land at 40.7% instead of the market's 64%? Two reasons, and both are things a slate player thinks about every day. First, the season is not over. Roughly nine starts remain, and a two-thirds probability treats nine starts as a formality. Second, and more specific, Misiorowski is a rookie carrying a career-high innings load into September. Milwaukee has every reason to manage that arm, and a skipped start or a soft innings cap is exactly the kind of quiet decision that reopens a race. The panel is not betting against his talent. It is refusing to pay a near-lock price on an arm with a known workload question and a live field behind it.

This exact split has decided the award before. In 2021 the writers gave the NL Cy Young to Milwaukee's Corbin Burnes over Philadelphia's Zack Wheeler, 151 points to 141, even though Wheeler out-threw him 213 innings to 167, then a record-low workload for a winner. Rate beat volume that year, and the same two franchises anchor the 2026 race: a Brewers rate monster against a Phillies volume case. The 10-point margin is the panel's argument in miniature. When the profiles split this way the vote is a real argument, not a coronation, and an 80-cent price leaves no room for the argument.

That is the honest read: the market is right about who the best pitcher is, and the models think it is charging too much for the certainty.

Price every pitcher yourself. The Cy Young board is a season-long verdict, but a slate is won pitch by pitch. The Stokastic MLB Sims run every arm through matchup, park and salary so you know when to pay up for the ace and when the value is a stacked bat. New to the tools? Use code STOK10 for 10% off Stokastic.

The Arms The Models Like Better Than The Market

If Misiorowski is overpriced, the leftover probability has to go somewhere, and the panel is clear about where. This is the value read a DFS player will recognize: the market has spent almost everything on one name and left the rest of the board on the floor.

• Chris Sale (12.6% Vs 6.9% De-Vigged). The panel's most voter-credible fallback, and the second name on the whole board. A 2.08 ERA and a 1.02 WHIP is elite, and Sale carries the pedigree that makes him the obvious choice if the leader stumbles. The knock is innings: at 117.0 he trails the volume leaders, so his case needs the top to crack.
• Cristopher Sanchez (10.4% Vs 7.7%). The workhorse case. He leads this group in innings at 144.2 and in wins at 14, with a 2.61 ERA and 168 strikeouts. Voters still notice a durable 14-win season, and if Misiorowski gets managed down, Sanchez has the volume to pass him.
• Chase Burns (7.6% Vs About 1.2%). The biggest mispricing on the board, and the panel's largest lean over the market in raw points. A rookie at 13-1 with a 2.35 ERA sits at a couple of cents, de-vigged to roughly 1.2%, and the panel blends him to several times that. His walk rate (43 in 118.2) is the reason for caution, but the results have been loud.
• Zack Wheeler (5.8% Vs 2.8%) And Yoshinobu Yamamoto (4.8% Vs 1.2%). Two rate-strong arms the market has written off. Wheeler's 105 innings are the residue of a late start, a first month lost to recovery from offseason thoracic-outlet surgery, so his case is a pure rate case that needs help on volume, the same trap that cost him the 2021 vote from the other direction. Yamamoto's 0.88 WHIP is one of the stingiest marks among the contenders.

None of these are the panel calling an upset. They are the panel saying a race with nine starts left is not a one-name board, and the four cents the market spends on Wheeler or the penny it spends on Yamamoto do not reflect arms pitching at this level.