Remember when Odubel Herrera had the third most walks in baseball this season? Jeff Sullivan wrote about it in late April. Herrera was a Rule 4 draft pick who immediately became a 4-win player in his rookie season for the Phillies in 2015. As such, he quickly dropped in the mental space I have that holds players like Jose Bautista and J.D. Martinez who changed something after already becoming major leaguers and became dramatically different players. And so maybe it was possible that Herrera could become the next Joey Votto. I just didn’t know how to project those late bloomers.

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Nolan Arenado didn’t have many flaws in 2015. He played in 157 games, hit 42 home runs, struck out just 16.5 percent of his plate appearances, and carried a .287 batting average that was supported by a sustainable .284 BABIP. But this season, Arenado still found a way to make a major improvement. He nearly doubled his walk rate from 5.1 percent to 9.8 percent, which increased his on-base percentage by 41 points and runs total by 19 without making much of an impact on any of the rest of his statistics. He was the No. 1 fantasy third baseman this year, and we project him to be the No. 2 fantasy third baseman next season.

When a player is that productive, there typically isn’t much else that needs to be said for fantasy purposes. Still, I’m always fascinated by the elite Rockies players because of their extreme ballpark, and Arenado has followed the same path that players like Larry Walker and Troy Tulowitzki blazed before him.

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It was a very strange year at catcher. The top of the end of season catcher rankings don’t look too unusual with Jonathan Lucroy and Buster Posey at the top, but those full-season numbers do not capture the amazing impact three catchers who become starters midseason had. Gary Sanchez’s prospect star had faded a bit in recent seasons, but that reflected defensive doubts. Most scouts agreed that Sanchez would hit if he could field his position. Willson Contreras had become the top catching prospect, and he immediately delivered on that promise with the Cubs.

Sandy Leon was completely different. Leon made his debut with the Nationals all the way back in 2012, and Wilson Ramos was not the only reason Leon never played regularly before this season. In his 235 plate appearances from 2012-15, Leon slashed an abysmal .187/.258/.225. His .223 wOBA over that period made him roughly equivalent at the plate to Mike Leake. This season, Leon was tied with Lucroy for the third-highest wOBA of .362. He was nearly identical to Contreras in both plate appearances and production.

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Did my bold predictions crash and burn again? Yes. But did they actually lead to some good fantasy advice this time? Possibly!

Previous bold predictions reviews: 2015, 2014

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Last Friday, September 9, baseball saw its 4,910th home run of the season hit, passing the total number hit in all of 2015. If you’re reading this, then you’ve probably known about the spike in home run rates since mid-2015 for a while now. I started to pay close attention to the trend when I read the first of Rob Arthur’s and Ben Lindbergh’s articles on FiveThirtyEight (one, two, and three) that posited that a juiced baseball could be responsible for the change. That was more than five months ago, and the trend has not slowed down since then.

In fantasy, the increase in power is particularly important because it undermines the value of hitters whose elite home run totals no longer stand out to the same extent. With still almost three weeks left in the season, 91 hitters have already reached 20 or more home runs. That’s the most players at that benchmark in a season since 2008. If this power surge continues, then the Khris Davises and Chris Carters of the world will lose a lot of value. Why reach for them when Brad Miller has 28 home runs and Marcus Semien has 24 home runs? Suddenly, speed is the scarce resource.

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The star of yesterday’s Rays-Red Sox day game was Hanley Ramirez, whose fifth-inning grand slam erased a three-run deficit en route to an 8-6 victory for the Red Sox. Batting ninth in the order, Jackie Bradley was out of the spotlight, but his performance was likely more important to the team’s playoff aspirations given his recent struggles and history of streakiness. Bradley was on third base for Ramirez’s grand slam following a leadoff hit in the fifth inning. He added his own home run to extend the team’s lead to 6-4 in the sixth inning. And he added the team’s final run with a double to right field in the eighth inning. It was Bradley’s first three-hit game since July.

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Following the five home runs he hit in the last three Red Sox games entering Wednesday, Mookie Betts has quickly joined the AL MVP race. Mike Trout, Josh Donaldson, Jose Altuve, and Betts are the only four hitters in baseball with at least 6.0 WAR so far this season. That race may come down to contextual factors beyond his control, such as whether the Red Sox makes the playoffs, but however it unfolds, Betts has an even stronger chance of landing the fantasy MVP, ignoring draft positions. His combination of 28 home runs and 18 stolen bases is so rare in today’s game. Trout and Wil Myers are the only other players threatening the 30-20 club, and they’re both five home runs short of Betts at the moment.

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On Tuesday night, Steven Wright was roughed up for nine hits and eight earned runs in 4.2 innings against the Tigers. Amazingly, he remains seventh among qualified starters in the AL with a 3.12 ERA, but there seems to be this constant fear that Wright could become a bad pitcher at any moment. Given his lack of track record before this season, I think some apprehension is justifiable. However, my perception is that the greater part of the mistrust of Wright’s performance to date is tied to his being a knuckleballer, which I believe makes people think these sorts of blow-up performances are all but guaranteed when he loses the feel for his most important pitch.

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Wade Miley hasn’t been a fantasy-relevant pitcher this season with his 5.36 ERA, but his performance on Tuesday night against the White Sox piqued my interest nonetheless. He wasn’t particularly good in the start, allowing three runs with just four strikeouts and three walks over 6.1 innings. However, Miley was just two pitches away from preventing the White Sox from scoring at all.

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Steven Matz was effective in all six of his starts in 2015, striking out at least six batters in four of those outings and limiting opposing offenses to three or fewer runs in all six of them. However, Matz didn’t show the world the excellent pitcher he would become until his penultimate start of 2015 on September 8 against the cross-town rival New York Yankees. That was the start when he threw his first major league slider, and it helped him limit the Yankees to one run over six innings and then strike out eight Cincinnati Reds six days later to close out his season.

That new pitch has become an important part of Matz’s repertoire in 2016. Over his first 11 starts this season, Matz threw his slider on 12.7 percent of his pitches, a similar ratio to his other off-speed pitches, a curveball (13.0 percent) and a changeup (11.1 percent). However, four starts ago, Matz cut back heavily on his slider usage, and prior to his pushed-back-a-day June 30 start, we likely learned why. Matz felt tightness in his elbow after his previous start, and an MRI revealed that he had developed bone spurs in his pitching elbow.

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