The Rangers had an impressive 2017 draft and feature an intriguing collection of talented players — especially in the low minors.

The Graduate: Jose Leclerc, RHP: The Rangers are known for churning out young, high-impact players but that wasn’t the case in 2017 with Leclerc as the top rookie with a 0.2 WAR. He showed swing-and-miss stuff with a strikeout rate of 11.82 K/9 but he also walked almost eight batters per nine innings. He predominantly relies on a fastball-changeup combo but mixes in a few other offerings and his slider shows some potential. He put a lot of batters on base — mainly due to the free pass — but was difficult to hit and allowed just 23 base knocks. If he can find a way to locate the plate more consistently then he could be a very dominating pitcher.

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Last week, I reviewed my 2017 bold hitter league leaders. Not surprisingly, I went 0 for 10, but earned a couple of “spirit wins”. Since these are far more difficult to get right than bold predictions, a spirit win is still a positive result. Let’s see if I performed any better on the pitching side. Here is my original article and explanations.

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(10/9: Thanks to everyone for the additions.)

One player class I target for potential bargains are hitters who played through injuries. These injuries drag down a player’s production as they and their team struggle with the tradeoff of a regular player at 80% or a replacement at 100%. With the season just ending and drafts months away, I want to create a draft season reference list while people still remember parts of the 2017 season.

A few years back, I examined the negative effects of playing through injuries, mainly power. In the following season, those effects are gone for hitters.

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In the two previous years I’ve curated the RotoGraphs staff picks, I evaluated them during the post-/offseason to determine which staff writer had the best time pickin’. What good are our allegedly “expert” picks if we don’t hold ourselves accountable?

You can find this year’s preseason picks here. The best pick in each category is an indiscernible blend of talent (duh) and uniqueness (like, Andrew Benintendi as a Rookie of the Year candidate is not very original, so I’d dock you points for that). Most correct (with air quotes) picks wins. Let’s go!

(Shallow) Sleeper (ADP 201-300, per NFBC ADP)

Pitcher: Robbie Ray (Brice Russ, Jeff Zimmerman)
Hitter: Domingo Santana (Al Melchior, Birchwood Bros., Justin Vibber)

There are three standout picks here, but one stands above the rest. I have written repeatedly (aka twice) about Ray’s rollercoaster career and baffling peripherals. He has delivered consecutive seasons of extreme outliers; his true self is probably a perfect blend of 2016 and 2017, which is roughly a mid-3.00s ERA with league-leading strikeouts and potentially league-trailing walks (and, also, league-trailing contact management). He is Yu Darvish’s stateside-produced clone, and early evidence (#2early mock drafts, henceforth) suggests he’ll be drafted as such.

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Recently I reviewed the results of the first few rounds of a new dynasty league prospect draft.  The review continues today with a quick look at some key selections in rounds 7 – 9.

Dynasty Prospect Draft Review: Rounds 1 – 3

Dynasty Prospect Draft Review: Rounds 4 – 6

This draft should help you “discover” a few names to keep an eye on going forward.  If you have specific questions about players or the thought process of why they were selected, fire away in the comments section, as I’ve asked each owner in the league to be on standby to provide feedback as we review the rounds.

Before I review my own thoughts on the draft, you should know this Ottoneu league uses the “FanGraphs Points” scoring system based on linear weights, so offense is heavily slanted towards wOBA skills (and speed is almost a non-factor).  We also somewhat arbitrarily removed the Top 12 overall offensive prospects to save them for the standard 40-man auction next spring.  Otherwise, any minor league player without one (1) MLB PA or IP is eligible to be drafted.  You can read more about the custom rules of this dynasty league here, and follow along with the draft here.

Many of the prospects below are also featured on the 2018 Top 100 Fantasy Prospects list.

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Last year, I finished with 3.5 out of 10 bold predictions correct. This year, I hoped to at least match that while also providing bolder predictions. I failed. In fact, I failed miserably and doled out what was probably the worst bold prediction in the history of the series. Without further ado, let’s take a look at the outcome of my bold predictions. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s hard to luck into a .300 batting average, but that is pretty much what happened with my bold predictions. Two of the three calls I got right — Jose Quintana’s high ERA and Nick Castellanos‘ admittance into the 25-homer club — could be at least partially explained by this season’s home run explosion. The remaining seven predictions did not age well, but they have given me new perspectives on several players, including Yuli Gurriel and Jean Segura.

1. Tom Koehler will be roughly as valuable as Matt Moore.

Moore lived down to expectations, but Koehler was still far less valuable than he was. Koehler’s slider, which was key to an extended run of success in 2016, was not an effective pitch for him in 2017. His O-Swing rate on the pitch dropped substantially, from 44.7 to 34.2 percent, and his slider strikeout rate went down, while his Iso went up. Those trends ultimately led to Koehler’s ouster from the Marlins’ rotation, though it provided him with a fresh start in the Blue Jays’ bullpen.

WRONG (0/1)
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Well, the season is over, and it is time to review Bold Predictions. In my midseason check in I wrote the following to describe my position on Bold Predictions:

I think these should be fun and spark conversation. As a result, they should probably be controversial, at least in part. There should be a reason for each pick, and the reason shouldn’t necessarily be built on a strong hypothesis. If you have a solid reason to believe something then you aren’t talking about a bold prediction, it is just a normal prediction. Bold predictions should be built on a questionable foundation, that’s the fun part.

Today I will not get into the deeper reasons for each prediction, you can read the mid season check in to find those. Instead, let’s get down to brass tacks. How’d I do? Read the rest of this entry »

I’m not sure I have this whole bold predictions thing figured out. As has been the case for me in the past, several of my predictions this season produced useful fantasy advice. In particular, avoiding Jake Arrieta and drafting Jose Berrios, Dylan Bundy, Ender Inciarte, and Luke Weaver would have helped your team. But that was not enough to make any of my predictions actually correct.

Previous bold predictions reviews: 2016, 2015, 2014

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Since I seemingly enjoy embarrassing myself at the end of the season, I go one step further from just the regular bold predictions. I also boldly predict the league leaders in each of the five fantasy hitting and pitching categories! Here are my picks and initial thought process. It’s a miracle if I even get one of these correct. Let’s see how I did.

American League

Batting Average – Manny Machado

I keep choosing him thanks to his strong strikeout rate and massive power, with the hopes he could finally cure his pop-up problem and enjoy some good batted ball fortune for a change. Not this season! He actually posted a career low .265 BABIP that led to a weak .259 average. Not only did he fail to correct his pop-up issues, but he also forgot how to hit line drives. Since he finished strong, he probably won’t come at much of a discount next year.

0 for 1

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