2015 Bold Hitter League Leaders
Every season, in addition to posting my standard bold predictions, I up the ante with my bold league leaders. If you thought nailing a bold prediction was tough, the bold league leaders is even more difficult! Just getting one right is worthy of celebration. Because these are bold, I automatically disqualify players I don’t personally believe should be considered bold. So I challenge myself and it typically causes me to bat .000. But, at the very least, might push you to go the extra buck on these players, which, after all, is what these bold predictions are all about.
We’ll start with the hitting league leaders in each of the five categories, split up by league.
American League
Batting Average – Pablo Sandoval
Sandoval should enjoy his new Fenway Park home, and as Tony Blengino put it, the park switch makes him a “happy Panda“. So that should provide a nice BABIP boost. He has posted a mark as high as .350 before, so he has that in his history. He also makes excellent contact, posting remarkably consistent strikeout rates between 13.1% and 13.5% in every full season of his career. Continued good contact plus a BABIP surge could result in a batting average well above .300.
Home Runs – Brandon Moss
Just last week I boldly predicted that Moss would hit 35 homers, and that mark would tie him for the Pod projected AL lead in homers. To reach that lofty total, he’ll need to play more against lefties and not be part of a strict platoon. And hey, it’s a small sample for sure, but he actually hit better against southpaws than right-handers in 2014!
RBI – Hanley Ramirez
That Boston lineup figures to be quite strong, and our projected standings actually forecast the team to lead baseball in runs scored. Ramirez is set to hit clean up, behind a trio of hitters who could all post .350+ OBP marks. Obviously, staying healthy will be key here. But if he does manage to, he has a real shot at eclipsing his current career high RBI mark of 106.
Runs – Mookie Betts
Mike Trout has led the league in runs scored for three straight years, so anyone not named Trout is going to be bold! I decided to stick with the Red Sox theme here. It make sense to go with their leadoff hitter if they are projected to score the most runs. Betts has displayed strong on base ability, has excellent speed and even some pop. It’s exactly the combination that should end up near the top of the runs scored leaderboard. Of course, we still can’t say with 100% certainty that he’s going to be the every single day center fielder. But if he performs the way we are projecting, the Sox couldn’t possibly take him out of the lineup if winning is their goal.
Stolen Bases – Everth Cabrera
It wasn’t easy to settle on a bold stolen base leader. Seemingly anyone with speed and a full-time job or strong-side platoon job didn’t seem that bold. So Cabrera it is. At the moment, he’s probably just a bench player, if he even makes the Orioles. But the calculus here is that Jonathan Schoop either loses the starting second base job due to his pathetic on base skills, or Schoop opens the year in the minors and Cabrera starts from the get-go. Cabrera also got a start in center field, which suggests that at the very least, he could be an often-used utility man. Would 400 plate appearances be enough for Cabrera to lead the league in steals? He has to prove last year was simply a fluke down speed season first, but he did swipe 44 bags in just 449 plate appearances back in 2012.
National League
Batting Average – Nolan Arenado
When in doubt, pick a Rockie. Arenado batted .287 last year and now owns a .277 career average, so this would represent quite a leap. But he makes excellent contact, might have further home run upside given his batted ball distance and calls a BABIP-inflating park home. Last season he required just a below league average .294 BABIP to hit .287. It’s true that he hasn’t posted the batted ball distribution necessary for an inflated BABIP and his minor league track record doesn’t offer much hope. But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t get lucky. All he would need is a .330 BABIP and his projected average jumps to .313, which would easily lead the league in my projections. That doesn’t seem so crazy.
Home Runs – Kris Bryant Jorge Soler
Sure, why not. At this point, would Bryant even be considered bold? Soler has already mashed at the Major League level, albeit over a tiny sample size of just 97 plate appearances. He posted a strong batted ball distance and high average angle, but most impressively, led all of baseball in SDD, by a long shot. That means that when he got a hold of one, it was absolutely launched.
RBI – Mark Trumbo
Probably not that bold, but if I don’t pick a power hitter batting in the middle of the order, I have no chance whatsoever. Trumbo is set to hit clean up and because his batted ball distance actually remained stable last year, he should experience a power rebound. He’ll be batting behind A.J. Pollock and his respectable OBP and good speed and fellow RBI leader contender Paul Goldschmidt and his excellent OBP.
Runs – Christian Yelich
Yelich finished fifth in the NL in runs scored this year, so call this decidedly unbold if you will. But, last year he hit lead off, while this year that’s going to be Dee Gordon’s spot, at least to open the season. So that will push Yelick into the second hold, costing him about 15-20 plate appearances. The idea here is that Gordon is at risk of posting a poor OBP and could easily get dropped to the bottom of the order, reopening up the leadoff spot for Yelich. If he does up his fly ball rate and experience a power spike, that should boost his run total as well.
Stolen Bases – Eric Young
It’s kind of silly to predict someone that isn’t Billy Hamilton, Dee Gordon or Ben Revere to lead the league in steals. But that’s what I’m here to do. The Braves are set to trot out an embarrassing offense and B.J. Upton’s (I’m so glad that we haven’t changed his first name to Melvin yet!) injury opened the door for Young to win the center field job until the latter’s return. But even when Upton does come back, left field certainly isn’t locked down and if Young is performing well, could keep a near full-time job. He’s still on the good side of 30 and stole 30 bases last year in just 316 plate appearances, so the speed is still there, as is the willingness to steal bases.
Mike Podhorzer is the founder of ProjectingX IQ, an advanced fantasy baseball analytics platform that transforms projection data and in-season performance signals into actionable intelligence. He is the 2015 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Baseball Writer of the Year and three-time Tout Wars champion. He is the author of the eBook Projecting X 2.0: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance, which teaches you how to project players yourself. Follow Mike on X@MikePodhorzer and contact him via email.
Here’s why I put no stock in these projections. You say if Arenado would hit .313 he would easily lead the league in batting average… Yet only twice in 144 years of recorded baseball history, covering 272 batting titles, has a player hit lower than .313 and won a batting title. I understand that the projections play it safe, but that kind of statement is just absolutely ridiculous.
But, we are in an era of depressed offense and last year’s NL leader only hit .319, with only 3 players topping .313. Predicting a league leader at .313 is bold, but well within the realm of possibility.
Yes, and 8 players topped it in 2013, so while it’s not impossible, it’s still VERY unlikely. It’s even more unlikely that .313 would lead the league by a wide margin.
Absolutely ridiculous and very unlikely are 2 different things. I agree, it’s unlikely, but this is a bold prediction, so it should be unlikely. I actually think the wackier part is predicting Arenado to do it, since he never topped .300 in his 2 main minor league stints.
“Your bold predictions aren’t bold enough!”
“Ok, they’re too bold!”
These projections are for fun.
The .313 would lead in his projections, but it does not mean .313 will win the title.
Love your projections!!! if this holds true I should do very well in my league as I roster:
Mookie
Hanley
Bham
Ok so the last one wasn’t one of your projections, but you did say it would be stupid to bet against him. Here’s to hoping your right!!!
seems a bit boston centric – putting all your eggs in one basket. That team could completely fall apart. Hanram get hurt. Pablo = crawford and blows at fenway and Betts isn’t as good as projected.
one could say the author is being quite…bold?
Some people/readers just need to be negative Mike. I love the series by all of you. Good job. Enjoyed it.
Ugh! FG keeps eating my comments!
Remember that Cabrera posted the worst OBP of his career last year, and that his similar 2010 OBP produced only 10 SB’s. If we prorate that to his 2014 PA’s, his 2010 falls short by two bases. So, if his BABIP returns to .320+, and he can remember how to take a BB, I can see him coming close to, if not leading, the AL in SB’s this summer.
Me too. If he makes the team, Showalter has already said that he’d like to use Cabrera as a super utility guy—he’s played some OF in exhibition games. And it’s hard to get worse than Schoop as a hitter; he can’t hit a breaking ball to save his life and refuses to take a walk.
It’s a bold prediction, but not crazy bold. Like somebody else above, I do think the Arenado prediction is crazy bold. Despite getting a big assist from playing half of his games at spacious Coors Field, he still only hit .303 at home. So both the home and road (.269) numbers would have to spike and that would mean a very big boost from BABIP.
But the great thing about Mike is that he makes truly bold predictions.
What is SDD? Standard distance deviation? You might want to explain the Jorge Soler comment.
Standard Deviation of Distance. Explained it in a series of articles about my xHR/FB equation last month, prob should have linked to something this time.
Only 30% Red Sox IS bold, indeed!
The RedSox are a fantasy team. Every time i see a team constructed like this, they fail to meet expectations. Remember the Marlins, several Yankee teams, and even the Dodgers. With regard to BOS, I’ll take the under.
Arenado 5% BB rate for his career — it’s very rare to get a .320 hitter out of a guy like that unless he has, let’s say, Ben Revere-type speed. Youth on his side of course, so maybe he can start taking more BBs and get a true breakout.
Boston, Boston, Boston, blah blah blah…
Two players I am interested to hear your projections on: Betts and Wong. You were the highest on the two of them in the top 300. Thanks.
I was highest on Wong? That’s a surprise! I had no idea. Since the published rankings, the Betts’ PA projection may be different. Don’t remember where I was at back then. Possibly more than I’m at now.
Betts – 600 PA, .288, 12 HR, 83 R, 49 RBI, 22 SB
Wong – 550, .264, 13, 60, 61, 23
It seems like the biggest thing separating Wong from Betts is the BA upside and line up position. Do you project Wong to stay down in the order? Wong is having a pretty rough spring result wise, but luckily he isn’t striking out a lot and he’s healthy.
Basically Im thinking I can potentially take Betts if he fall or Kipnis as a back up around 80th overall or just grab Wong around 100th overall. The difference would mean getting an Wood/Arrieta type pitcher at pick 80 instead of a DeGrom (if he falls) or Sanchez type pitcher around pick 100.
What would you do? Thanks again for the feedback.
Yeah, Wong ain’t moving up in the order as Carpenter, Heyward and Holliday are locked into the top 3 I’d think.
I’d just go for the best guy now and worry about pick 100 when that comes up!
AL –
BA: Melky Cabrera
HR: Jose Bautista
RBI: Jose Abreu
R: Mike Trout
SB: Jose Ramirez
NL –
BA: Yasiel Puig
HR: Anthony Rizzo
RBI: Bryce Harper
R: Yasiel Puig
SB: Billy Hamilton
Ok so maybe a couple of these aren’t as “bold” but what the hell, just will be curious how I do. 🙂
No way Jose!
I’ve got Jose Bautista leading the AL in runs this year. That .400 OBP in front of Encarnacion and Donaldson is going to be ridiculous.
Almost TOO bold! We would have accepted Kris Bryant as a bold HR-leader pick. Dude won’t even make the team out of camp.