1. Mike Trout or Clayton Kershaw will not be the #1 ranked fantasy player for 2015. These two are the consensus number one hitter and pitcher, but I will take the field that someone else will step up and surprise everyone.

2. Pedro Alvarez will lead the National League in home runs. He is an after thought for many owners after hitting 36 home runs in 2013. The move to first base will allow him to not worry about his 3B defense and just hit home runs.

3. Martin Prado will be more productive than Kris Bryant. I think Prado is getting way under valued with 2B, 3B, and OF eligibilities in some leagues. He has historically hit near .300 with some pop. Bryant’s spring has been inflating his value beyond where it should be. Also, he won’t be able to feast off scrub pitching and his strikeout rate may become a huge drag.

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After completely missing the point that these bold predictions — published on Rotographs, after all — should be fantasy related the first few years, I think I’m going to actually make the leap and, you know, do my job correctly.

With that said, here are my 10 hot ta Bold Predictions for the upcoming season:

1. Kyle Gibson is no worse than the second-most valuable Twins starter in fantasy this year.

With Phil Hughes, Ervin Santana and even Ricky Nolasco in-house, I think this qualifies as bold. Through just over 230 big league innings, Gibson holds a 4.92 ERA, 5.3 K/9 and is a game under .500 at 15-16 record-wise. Still, when digging into his PITCHf/x, I found his slider picked up considerable steam in terms of results (.846 OPS in 2013; .517 in 2014) and it can’t be chalked up to any discernible usage difference. In fact, he threw it more often in 2014. Add to that an emerging changeup that’ll probably play up with the tutelage of former Rays minor league pitching coach Neil Allen on his side, and I think Gibson has some sleeper potential. The bowling ball sinker (54.4% GB rate last year) will always be there, but health and better stuff seem to be coming down the line. I’m buying Gibson this year. Read the rest of this entry »

Another year, another set of bold predictions to nail down. If you’d like to check out some of my past predictions, here are 2013’s along with the review and here are 2014’s predictions and the subsequent review.

As usual, firing squad please report directly to the comments section.

Here goes nothing:

1. Drew Pomeranz and Jesse Hahn will be top 75 starters
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Writing on Friday is tough for Bold Predictions as my RotoGraphs colleagues gradually picked off many of my predictions one by one through the week. Don’t feel too bad for me, I still found plenty that will probably come back to haunt me in a few months (or sooner!).

1. Jorge Soler will hit at least 33 home runs

Going with 30 home runs didn’t feel quite bold enough since Steamer pegs Soler for 24 and the Fans call for 26. So… 33 home runs! I think he compares especially well to Justin Upton, whose 70-pick premium over Soler in NFBC ADP feels quite steep. Check out his ISO numbers last season for a hint at his power upside: .446 in Double-A, .336 in Triple-A and .281 in the majors.

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This post continues our Depth Chart Discussions. You can find the Depth Chart Discussion posts gathered here.

This might be the last time I rap at y’all wearing my depth chart hat. I put off discussing my home team, not because I feel that I’d be any more biased in my examination of them than I would be with other teams; rather, it’s because I wanted to avoid being depressed by what appears to be a closing window. But we’re talking fantasy value here, not playoff odds, so I’ll save my pouting for another post, or for another website altogether.

The 2014 Brewers infield produced a mixed bag for fantasy owners. Jonathan Lucroy continued to improve and was a top-three catcher; those that owned him likely had him at a bit of a value. Scooter Gennett proved to be a viable second base option, at least against right-handed pitchers. On the other hand, Jean Segura took a huge step back. Aramis Ramirez missed a lot of time and put up his worst season in years, even by rate stats. And then there was first base. To say that the Brewers failed to produce a first base option for fantasy players is putting it lightly. Without Mark Reynolds’s 22 homers on the books, it would look even worse, but Reynolds batted under .200 and finished with a .302 wOBA. To think that the team actually got significantly more production out of the first base position than they did in 2013 says more about how historically bad Brewers first basemen were in 2013 than anything about the 2014 squad. This past off-season they traded Marco Estrada to the Blue Jays for the rights to a year of Adam Lind. Lind should provide something of an upgrade, but we’ll get to that a bit later.

First, here’s an overview of what the Brewers infield is likely to be on opening day:

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This 30-part series will look at the projected Top 5 freshman contributors for each big league club for the year ahead. The rankings take into consideration a mixture of ceiling, readiness and potential playing time allocation, which is to say some players with lower ceilings may be ranked ahead of others with higher ceilings because they project to have a greater impact in the coming season.

In a Nutshell: The club suffered through a nightmare season in 2014 thanks to injuries but the club should be better positioned to weather the storm in 2015, thanks to the impending arrivals of a number of key prospects.

1. Alex Gonzalez, RHP: The Rangers first round draft pick from 2013, Gonzalez will likely open 2015 back in Double-A but he’s a spring training invitee and a strong spring could help him earn one of the first promotions to offset an injury or disappointing performance. The Rangers have some pitching depth entering the year but the starting rotation has some question marks in the No. 4 and 5 slots, as well as a couple of other arms with injury concerns. Gonzalez is fairly polished and has good command/control, which helps his average-ish fastball play up. The young hurler also gets his fair share of ground-ball outs. He has the ceiling of a No. 3 starter.

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With no shortage of upsets in March Madness, let’s hope you, dear reader, do not get upset at today’s Roto Riteup.

On today’s agenda:
1. Matt Cain’s minor league outing
2. Bad news for Mike Fiers?
3. Matt Wieters could miss Opening Day
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A few weeks back, I dropped some ice-cold water on some of the spring’s favorites just to give us a reality check about their downside. Interestingly enough, the guy I was struggling most to wet blanket is the one who is now dealing with an ailment: Anthony Rendon with his MCL. For me, his checkered health record was the only thing really holding him back as it could cut into his base-stealing production if it was something nagging and obviously something more severe could really take a chunk out of his numbers. Today, I’ll do the same from fast-rising pitchers and ideally, I’ll go beyond health concerns for all three picks as those loom overhead for every single pitcher every single time they throw the ball.

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Episode 206

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris discuss some Spring Training news:

• Yelich extension
• Fiers shoulder
• Saunders plays
• Murphy hammy
• Bailey to debut

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• The Rays starting rotation is a mess right because of a trio of injuries. Alex Cobb has forearm tendinitis which will cause him to miss time to start the season. Drew Smyly will at least miss his first start with shoulder tendinitis. Alex Colome won’t be in the starting rotation to start the season after showing up to spring training late and then being in the hospital with pneumonia. The Rays rotation now looks to be Chris Archer, Jake Odorizzi, Nate Karns, Burch Smith and one of the following: Enny Romero, Matt Andriese, Everett Teaford, or Grayson Garvin.

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