2015 Bold Pitcher League Leaders
Yesterday, I took our bold predictions one step further by unveiling my bold hitter league leaders. It’s not easy picking a league leader that could both be considered bold, and yet still not outrageous. Today I turn to pitchers, who with two ratio categories, are perhaps a bit easier.
American League
ERA – Carlos Carrasco
Choosing Carrasco probably isn’t so bold around these parts, but after my love affair with him leading up to last season, I had to remind all you lovely readers that I still remain a big fan. He possesses the holy trinity of skills given his ability to make hitters swing and miss, avoid the base on balls and induce lots of ground balls. There’s sure as heck no doubting his stuff.
WHIP – Michael Pineda
Clearly the biggest question here is whether Pineda is going to even pitch enough innings to qualify for the WHIP championship. But since he sports an impressive 1.01 career WHIP over what amounts to a little over a full season’s worth of innings, health is really all that makes this bold. Though his strikeout rate was down last year amid a decline in fastball velocity, he still posted an excellent SwStk% and tons of first pitch strikes. Now even further away from his shoulder surgery, you would think his velocity would improve, putting him in position to boost his strikeout rate and maintain a low WHIP.
Strikeouts – Drew Hutchison
Man, how do I not own him in either of the two leagues I’ve drafted already? If this was 10 years ago when any young pitcher with obvious upside wasn’t slapped with the dreaded sleeper tag, I’d have gotten him cheap in both leagues! Anyhow, what if his second half K% of 26.6% is real? That’s over a batter per inning, perhaps driven by that new slider. The strikeout lead will still be tough though as you can’t automatically count on him for 200+ innings.
Wins – R.A. Dickey
For some reason, I have been significantly more bullish than seemingly everyone the last two seasons on Dickey. I think he’s undervalued because a lot of his value is tied to his innings. He’s more of a compiler, so fantasy owners prefer the younger pitcher with more ERA upside, even if it comes in just 170 innings. We are projecting the Blue Jays to score the second most runs in baseball this year. Combine excellent offensive support with 200+ innings of mid-to-high 3.00 ERA ball, and it’s a recipe for a strong win total.
Saves – Brett Cecil
Is anyone with the closer job locked up really a bold choice to lead in saves? We know how flukey the category is, so it’s just a matter of going with a highly skilled reliever with limited closing experience who could be just as good as any of the established guys. Cecil is officially closing in Toronto and is coming off back-to-back impressive seasons out of the bullpen. Assuming his shoulder holds up, there’s no reason to believe he won’t hold onto the job all year and be quite effective saving games.
National League
ERA – Gerrit Cole
Calm down, I know Cole’s name excites everyone. We know he has the control, he’s got the repertoire, ranking 26th in Arsenal Score (linked above), and has displayed a ground ball tilt. In many ways, he’s very Carrasco-like. Though Cole throws more fastballs, which makes it a bit tougher for him to maintain a high strikeout rate. If he does start throwing his secondary offerings more, his strikeout rate could take another jump up, though his ground ball rate could take a hit.
Oh, and yeah, again, picking anyone but Clayton Kershaw here is pretty silly. But hey, I don’t call this bold for nothin’!
WHIP – Mike Fiers
I sorted my Pod Projections by WHIP and was rather shocked to see Fiers ranked seventh in the National League. Despite failing to average 90 mph with his fastball, he’s been an excellent strikeout pitcher throughout his professional career. He also possesses excellent control. But what’s really driving his low projected WHIP is the potential for a low BABIP. As an extreme fly ball pitcher who induces lots of pop-ups, I’m projecting just a .280 BABIP, which will limit the hits.
Strikeouts – Jacob deGrom
deGrom came out of nowhere last year, but his results, and specifically his strikeout rate, look pretty legit. He flashed an excellent fastball, changeup and curve ball, all of which induced above average rates of swinging strikes. He also threw a decent slider, but the pitch was worse than those other two offerings. If he dials down his slider usage in favor of of that fantastic changeup and also pushes his fastball usage down to the mid-50% range, there’s seemingly some room for additional strikeout rate upside.
Wins – Brandon McCarthy
LOL. I have Kershaw projected for a whopping four more wins than the next pitcher. Is McCarthy the most ridiculous bold prediction yet? He threw 200 innings last year for the first time since…well, ever. His skills surged last season and he posted a 3.00 SIERA. He now returns to the National League and will be backed by both a strong offense and defense. He’s healthy now so it’s silly to automatically assume he’s going to get injured this year. Maybe he lucks out and gets double the run support that Kershaw receives.
Saves – Hector Rondon
The Cubs do have a strong bullpen with several options who could likely do the job if Rondon were to falter. That concern is probably what’s helping keep Rondon’s draft day cost low. But his breakout year was fully supported by his skills and a fastball velocity that jumped two miles per hour. His slider was fantastic last year and if he decides to throw it more, his strikeout rate could increase to well above a batter per inning.
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.
The King of Bold strikes again.
I really like the McCarthy prediction—that’s really going out on a limb, considering his injury history.
I’d like to say something hackneyed like: “If McCarthy leads the NL in wins, I’ll eat my hat.” But I don’t own a hat, lol, just ski caps. I wonder: if you use enough salsa, is fleece palatable?
I’m a little confused by these. What do these bold predictions mean? Obviously you dont believe they are going to happen, so is it just throwing some random unlikely names out there? Or is it something like, of all the people you’d think have a 1% or less chance of doing this, here are some guys who I think really have a 5% chance of doing it?
WTF John. FG has a series of articles titled Bold Predictions. Many of the writers make these predictions. If you don’t like it, don’t read it. Or write a letter to the editor about your dislike for the series. Either way, STFU!!!
That escalated quickly.
Yikes, well it was a legitimate question. I read the bold predictions, and its my understanding that, since the bold predictions could be anything, that the authors are predicting things that they more or less believe in, but that is nonetheless bold. I was just confused by the league leaders because it seems forced, like you have to make these 10 specific category winner predictions that have to be far-fetched just cuz. Anyway, that was my question with this (and the hitting leader bold predictions) specifically.
What’s the problem with asking a legitimate question, especially if he’s unfamiliar with the Bold Predictions columns? To answer Jon’s question: it’s an exercise in predicting the improbable but not the impossible. You assign your own chances of these predictions being right based on what you’ve read, what you’ve seen about what these pitchers can do and your own personal biases.
IMHO, with the AL predictions at least, there is a 5% chance with most of them, a >10% chance if Hutchison’s slider is really legit, and something close to a 15% chance that Carrasco wins the ERA crown.
John, if you’re unfamiliar with the bold predictions column I apologize. My bad. I ASSumed you were one of the many wise guys here that can’t help but be negative about what is written. If I made an ASS out of myself, please forgive.
Enjoy the columns.
It means the predictions are bold. Not sweet and tangy, not even my favorite predictions of honey mustard. Bold.
The names may be unlikely, but they’re certainly not random-they have to do with Mr. Podhorzer’s personal projections and predictions for the upcoming season.
“Or is it something like, of all the people you’d think have a 1% or less chance of doing this, here are some guys who I think really have a 5% chance of doing it?”
Yes, it is something like that.
For further clarification see:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bold
Well this got fun. I think it’s a semantics issue. We call them “predictions”, but we don’t actually expect these events to actually occur. Perhaps “Bold Possibilities with a Greater Chance of Happening Than You Think” would be clearer 🙂
Totally unrelated, but I wanted some advice on who I should choose in my draft tonight. Available will most likely be Brantley, Tulo, HRam, Scherzer, Braun, Upton, Harper. 7X6 H2H daily league.
Not the place to post this. And when you find the right place: How could anyone possibly give you advice about that without knowing your league structure or at LEAST the extra categories your league uses?!
is this rotographs?
Avg, ops, tb, r, rbi, sb, hr/wins, qs, Ks, era, whip, sv.
If it’s a smaller league grab Tulo; SS replacement level will be higher so you can factor in some injury time. Otherwise my take is Scherzer or HRam.
Just my thoughts.
Good call on Cecil. Delabar shipped out of town only leaves him with a 20 year old rookie and Aaron Loup behind him.
Seeing all these bold projections has made me wonder if anyone has ever played in a league where stats are calculated by taking actual production and subtracting the original projections from them. It would be fun to watch people forego Kershaw, (because even if he does exceed what steamer projects for him there’s no way he could be more valuable than someone like Carrasco would have been last year) while targeting guys like these.
Has anyone ever heard of a league like this?
(This is in response to your response to my question yesterday)
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.
The only one out of bold predictions that I’d peg at 0% of happening is deGrom leading the league in strikeouts. The stuff and ability are there, I just don’t see him getting the innings needed. He’s gonna need well over 200 innings to have a shot and he only threw 140 last year. I’d be really surprised if the team pushes much past 180 innings, much less the 220+ he’ll probably need.
he reached 178 between the minors and the majors, 200+ seems possible.
What is great about bold predictions is that you actually dont think theyll happen but anything close, like Pineda finishing 5th in whip is valuable