Alex Chamberlain’s Five Bold Predictions for 2022: A Review

Here’s the original post. No dilly-dallying, let’s dive in.

1) Steven Kwan is a top-30 outfielder.

Kwan walk more than he stuck out, and while he only hit six home runs, he stole 19 bases and slashed .298/.373/.400 (124 wRC+). Only five qualified hitters had a better strikeout-to-walk ratio (K/BB), and only Luis Arraez had a lower swinging strike rate (SwStr%). Ultimately, Kwan finished the season 19th among outfielders on Razzball’s Player Rater. The haters will point to volume (he accumulated 622 plate appearances) but Kwan finished 20th among qualified outfielders on a per-game basis—that is, ignoring volume.

You may remember Kwan started the season scorching hot, then predictably fell back to earth, which entailed a somewhat grueling slump. Da Haters pointed to this slump as an indication of Kwan’s lack of viability as a Major Leaguer rather than simple gravity. The slump actually cost Kwan some starting time—he could’ve notched 700 PA if the Guardians didn’t lose faith in him in May, like everyone else did—but he rebounded by showcasing his tools. More excitingly, his counting stats increased as the season wore on, and he compiled three home runs, seven steals, and a .309 average in September alone.

I would argue Kwan’s 2022 final line (6-19-.298) was a median outcome for him. It wasn’t low-end, because that’s giving him way too much credit, but I think a higher-end outcome sees him hitting more power. He has scarcely any thump to speak of, but he did tap into some power at Triple-A, and his elite bat control is such that he could flick a few more home runs over the right field wall.

As I noted in the original bold prediction:

Kwan comes from a long line of peripheral prospects who boast elite contact skills (José Ramírez, Jeff McNeil, Jake Cronenworth, Josh Rojas) and a smattering of other fantasy-relevant skills, be it a little bit of power, speed, or both.

Hitters cut from this cloth are typically good, and I have been cashing in easy bold predictions (not to mention tons of surplus draft value) on these guys for years.

Final verdict: W (1 for 1)

2) Patrick Sandoval is a top-20 starting pitcher.

Sandoval posted a 2.91 ERA. You’d think that’d make him better than the 70th-best starting pitcher! Alas, it turns out Sandoval pitches for the excruciatingly terrible Angels, who won him just six starts. If he accrued, say, 12 wins, he would have been a top-50 starter. That’s still a far cry from top-20, though, so let’s examine that. For one, Sandoval only made 27 starts spanning 148 innings and change. He averaged only five-and-a-half innings and 90 pitches per start; a longer leash (e.g., 100-pitch average) would have seen him eclipse six innings. He probably didn’t earn such a leash, though. His inefficiency with walks (by virtue of his change-up-heavy approach) inflated his WHIP to an unsightly 1.34, which also undercut his value.

That’s the reality of the Patrick Sandoval experience: he’ll likely outperform his ERA estimators because of stuff, but his primary weapon, his change-up, carries the baggage of walks to earn its whiffs and grounders. Those walks piled up the way they did in 2021, and it will likely remain his biggest wart.

A top-50 pitcher (accounting for bad luck… although it’s kind of earned bad luck, given the state of the team that employs him) suffices. He was roughly the 50th starting pitcher off the board, per National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) average draft position (ADP), at around 200th overall. That makes him a net loss from an ROI standpoint. The process wasn’t awful, but I overestimated his ceiling from a skills standpoint and from a good-lord-the-Angels-are-terrible standpoint.

Final verdict: L (1 for 2)

3) Domingo Acevedo records at least 75% of Oakland’s saves.

I don’t hate the process here, either. Let’s recount everything that went right: Lou Trivino was bad and didn’t even finish the season with the A’s (although you can argue it should’ve gone better based on the inflated .389 BABIP and optimistic 3.19 SIERA), and Acevedo recorded a 15.8% SwStr, 21st among 152 qualified relivers.

Unfortunately, his 21.8% strikeout rate fails to adequately represent his swinging-strike prowess, and it undercut his effectiveness on the season (a 3.33 ERA is good, but as far as modern relievers go, it’s not outstanding or anything). Moreover, the A’s simply pivoted to Dany Jiménez instead. He was plenty effective, but I think you can make a strong argument that Acevedo is the superior option.

That bodes well moving forward, truthfully, considering Trivino is no longer around. I should give credit where it’s due: A.J. Puk wasn’t bad—he was quite good, in fact—and he may have cemented his role as a back-of-the-bullpen stalwart to preserve his health and play up his stuff. I can’t begin to guess how the pecking order for saves might look next year. The A’s could turn to Jimenez, the “most-established” arm but, in my opinion, the least-talented. He may eventually cede that role to Puk or Acevedo—and I think Puk would have the leg up there, as long as the A’s don’t anticipate reintegrating him into their rotation. We’ll see!

This is an “L,” but I don’t feel terrible about it. The bullpen was a mess, and four saves (out of 34) is better than none.

Final verdict: L (1 for 3)

4) Cooper Hummel will generate more value than teammate and fellow C/OF Daulton Varsho.

LOL.

I will say, I expected Varsho to be good, but I grossly underestimated how much he would contribute in counting stats. My goodness.

I liked Hummel, and I really never truly believed he’d be better from a talent standpoint—I just thought the Diamondbacks would find more opportunities to incorporate his bat, and/or Varsho might get injured. It ended up being a miserable 201 PA (although he underperformed his expected wOBA, or xwOBA, by 30 points—a reason not to underrate him just yet).

Final verdict: L (1 for 4)

5) Andrés Giménez is a top-15 player… overall.

More pull-out quotes to save time:

Inspired by Ryan Bloomfield’s annual tweet, and neck deep in several slow drafts where revealing my late-round targets could compromise my strategy, I quietly messaged Bloomfield and said something to the tune of, “this seems like an exceedingly bad idea, but, Andrés Giménez.”

Like clockwork, there was that one player who delivered 1st-round value from far outside it: Adolis García, who now has a combined 58 home runs and 41 stolen bases the last two years. I hate how I let groupthink push me off of him.

As for Giménez, he wasn’t such a bad pick. Julio Rodríguez was the popular pick, and rightly so; he came dangerously close to fulfilling the prophecy as well. But, for me, J-Rod wasn’t nearly as fun of a selection. Giménez ticked a lot of the boxes required of an unexpected breakout—age, skills, some post-hype biz.

Sadly, he stole at a much less-aggressive clip in 2022, swiping only 20 bags in 557 PA compared to 19 in his first 342 PA. If he actually stole 30 bases instead of 20… oh, man. That he only accumulated 557 PA instead of considerably more, considering the quality of his play (6.1 WAR!) is also mildly devastating, if not also mildly confusing from Cleveland’s perspective.

Crucially, though, he hit 17 home runs, and hit after hit fell, pushing his end-of-season line incredibly close to 20-20-.300. It was good for 56th overall, 37th among hitters. (With 30 stolen bases, he would’ve been 31st overall.)

So, we weren’t quite there, but I want to applaud myself for the boldness, even if it didn’t hit. J-Rod was the low-hanging fruit. Giménez was, uh, the high-hanging fruit. The odds were extremely long, and we overcame most of them.

Final verdict: L (1 for 4)