Why Jay Bruce might be the smart money in your prop bet

jay-bruce

Bovada released their player-prop bets for 2014 today, and Jay Bruce checked in at fairly long odds to win the National League MVP at 33 to 1.

This seems particularly insane; when the following players are on the board at such odds:

Bryce Harper 12 to 1
Buster Posey 12 to 1
Yasiel Puig 14 to 1
Freddie Freeman 14 to 1
Matt Kemp 16 to 1

Heck, I would put Bruce’s chances at equal or greater than all of those players. He’s certainly been more consistent despite not having that ‘monster’ year yet on the back of his baseball card.

Craig Calcaterra of Hardball Talk agrees with us:

Bruce is going to have at least one 40-homer, 120-RBI season before he’s done. I doubt he’ll actually be a better player than Votto, but he’s the one of the two more likely to win an MVP, mostly because he gets to hit behind the guy with the .430 OBP.

Yes, and Bruce is entering that magical age-27 season. He’s either going to go off and have that monster year this year or next while still in a Reds uniform or possibly elsewhere in his early 30’s when he’s playing in his home state of Texas. Or he’ll never have it. We still think there will be a year where Bruce stays locked in all year long and is the unstoppable version of himself.

If he does that, and you lay $300 on him being the National League’s MVP, you walk away with a $10,000 payday in October when you cash in your ticket. Think about that for a bit.

So go ahead, let Jay Bruce fund your retirement account. It will be fun. It will be easy.