Blake Snell Rolls to MLB The Show 20 Players League Crown
The month of April was a barren wasteland for actual sporting events. Sure, you had the NFL Draft near the end of the month but outside of that, you were reduced to things like badminton, chess, darts and possibly soccer and hockey in countries that no one ever considers when it comes to following professional sports. What did that leave sports fans and bettors with in order to sate their need for programming? Well, outside of competitive eating and provided you didn’t want to watch the National Stone Skipping Championships, that left us with something that entertained many of us as children: video games.
The NBA got things started with the NBA 2K Players Challenge, which was won by Devin Booker of the Suns. There were a pair of Madden NFL 20 tournaments: Derwin James of the Chargers won the first one while Marquise “Hollywood’ Brown downed Snoop Dogg in the title game of the Madden NFL 20 Celebrity Challenge last week. Starting last week, the NHL Gaming Player Challenge got underway, getting hockey involved. As for baseball, the 30-team MLB The Show 20 Players League started in early April and finally came to a close with the best of five championship series on Sunday afternoon.
After the regular season came to a close early last week, the postseason got underway with action on Thursday. In the quarterfinals, top-seeded Blake Snell (Rays) knocked off eighth-seeded Gavin Lux (Dodgers) 2-0 in the best of three series to punch his ticket to the semifinals. The Mets’ Jeff McNeil, seeded fourth, upended fifth-seeded Dwight Smith Jr. (Orioles), taking the decisive Game 3 3-1. Credit does have to go to Smith Jr. for taking the Orioles, who were 54-108 in real life in 2019, to the postseason. In the bottom half of the bracket, there were upsets as sixth-seeded Lucas Giolito (White Sox) knocked out third-seeded Bo Bichette (Blue Jays) 2-1 thanks to a 5-3 victory in Game 3. Ian Happ (Cubs), who won 10 of his final 11 regular season games to make the playoffs as the seventh seed, stunned second-seeded Joey Gallo (Rangers) 2-1. He rallied to win Game 2 4-3 with a walk-off three-run homer by Willson Contreras and went on to flummox the Texas slugger 7-0 in the winner take all contest.
That sent things to the semifinals, where Snell defeated McNeil, two games to one, to reach the finals. After falling behind by losing the opening contest and having his back to the wall, Snell rallied to win Games 2 and 3 by 8-0 and 7-0 scores to punch his ticket to the finals. In an all-Windy City battle, Giolito did just enough to defeat Happ 2-1 to advance. Giolito took the opener 8-3, lost the middle game 1-0 and won the series by wiggling out of a bases-loaded jam to take Game 3 by a 3-1 score. That put the duo into the best of five series for the championship.
As it turned out, the series was rather anticlimactic as Snell continued his torrid stretch of play to win the title on the heels of a three-game sweep. Snell and the Rays took Game 1 by a 5-1 count and held off Giolito and the White Sox 3-2 in Game 2. In Game 3, a late offensive barrage by Snell left Giolito and the White Sox battered and bruised to the point of waving the white flag. Tampa Bay won Game 3 6-0 to sweep the series and give Snell the first Players League title in history. After starting the season 2-2, Snell took 22 of his last 25 games in the regular season before going 7-1 in the playoffs to earn the crown.
From a betting perspective, Snell opened as the favorite in the sports books, going off at +550 to win it all. He actually was defeated 2-1 in a four-player tournament for MLB The Show 20 in late March by the Reds’ Amir Garrett, who finished 17-12 to miss the playoffs by two games. On the other side of the coin, Giolito went off initially at +3500 odds so his run to the finals was a bit more surprising. As the playoff field became revealed, we saw the odds shift as a result, making for a shift in odds.
Snell still went off as the favorite once the postseason began as the chalk favorite saw his odds go to +225 to win it all. He shared the top spot in the eyes of the sportsbooks at +225 with Gallo while Bichette was at +450. Rounding out the field was McNeil at +700, Giolito at +900, Smith Jr. at +1000, Lux at +1100 and Happ as the absolute dark horse at +1400 odds. There were opportunities to cash in if you were so inclined, though as the season wore on, the return declined precipitously.
The league as a whole was well-received by the players and perhaps it will come around again. It doesn’t replace actual play on the diamond but it was a nice distraction over the past month of nothingness.