Bold Predictions Review – Not Great, Bob!

Do you like laughing? Of course, we all do. Well, have I got something for you! Incorrect bold predictions always look hilariously stupid at season’s end, that’s just the nature of the beast. Given that they are at least somewhat far-fetched to begin with, ones that fail (most of them) often do so spectacularly. The RG crew has been reviewing their bold predictions all week so it’s time for me to take my victory lap medicine poop sandwich.

I tend to think that letter-of-the-law grading with Bold Predictions isn’t necessary as the purveyor of them is usually trying to get across a more general point as opposed to nail it exactly. For example, if someone said Kendrys Morales will be a top 10 first baseman as one of their BPs this year, I’d be inclined to give them a +1 for that even though he was 11th at the position per the ESPN Player Rater. That said, even leniency wouldn’t help me so we’re going with letter-of-the-law grading.

Let’s get to the carnage.

Yasmani Grandal is top five at catcher.

This one coulda been a contender! Through the first half, Grandal had a .282/.401/.526 line with 14 HR, 36 RBI, and 35 R in 257 PA. Even with less time than his catching counterparts, Grandal was almost certainly a top five backstop before the break. It all came crashing down in the second half. Grandal limped through 46 games with a .162/.280/.218 line adding just two more home runs and 11 RBI to his totals, yielding a 20th place finish which was actually two spots worse than his 2014 finish.

0/1

Starlin Castro is the top shortstop.

Ell-Oh-Ell.

0/2

Carlos Santana is the top third baseman.

This one was doomed from the start. First off, it’s tough to be tops at a position with a weak batting average, but I thought he could overpower it with a new career high in home runs. Instead, he gave back eight homers on his 2014 total.

Honestly, if you had told me back in the spring that he would play 154 games and steal 11 bases, I would’ve felt even better about this one. Unfortunately, not only did a repeat of his .231 AVG from 2014 make it near-impossible for him to be the position’s best, but the growth at the hot corner all but guaranteed a meager finish for Santana. He was 19th with a .231/.357/.395 line including 19 HR, 85 RBI, 72 R, and those 11 SB.

0/3

Leonys Martin is a top 15 OF.

Perhaps the worst part about this one is that I believed Martin had established a floor that would give him useful fantasy value even if he fell short of my lofty prediction. Not only did he completely miss on the top-15, but he fell apart entirely yielding his worst season yet: .219/.264/.313 with 5 HR, 25 RBI, 26 R, and 14 SB in 310 PA. Adding injury to insult, he essentially missed the final two months (four total games from Aug. 1st on) of the season with a hand injury. I probably deserve a -5 on this one.

0/4

Curtis Granderson hits 32 HRs.

This is where that lenient grading would’ve likely given me my first hit. Granderson fell six short of the 32 HRs, but the point of this bold prediction was that he had significant value given how late he was going, especially since power drives his game. He only hit 26 bombs, but he had a fantastic season overall (.259/.364/.457, 26, 70, 98, 11) landing as the 25th OF on the Player Rater after being the 68th OF off the board this past spring.

0/5

Michael Wacha is a top 10 SP.

Another one that had some juice after the first half as Wacha had a 2.93 ERA and 1.10 WHIP through 107 IP at the break. He was even better right out of the break with a 2.16 ERA and 1.18 WHIP in 50 IP from late-July through August. It was always going to be tough to land top 10 given the pitching age we’re in right now, but even something in the teens would’ve felt like a win as he was the 32nd SP off the board during draft season.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t even in the cards as Wacha sputtered to the finish line with a 7.88 ERA in 24 September innings dropping him down to 24th on the Player Rater. The idea behind this prediction was to jump on Wacha earlier than his ADP. Doing so would’ve likely meant taking him somewhere around 24-25 among SPs which means this ended up neutral at best, but it still goes down as an L.

0/6

Wade Miley is a top 25 SP.

This is another one where even something like a 33rd-place finish would’ve felt like a win considering he was 95th off the board for SPs and likely altogether undrafted in plenty of mixed leagues. I like Miley’s strong GB rate from 2013 and 2014. I also bought into his K% spike in ’14 and thought he had the potential for even more. He may well have that potential, but it sure as hell didn’t come through this year.

4.46 ERA and 1.37 WHIP in 194 IP while also seeing the GB% and K% drop. Neat.

0/7

Sonny Gray is outside the top 50 SP.

I’m a Gray fan so to have a negative prediction about him was tough, but I thought he was being overdrafted as a top-20 SP back in March. Turns out, he was being underdrafted as he went on to finish 12th this year.

The full season strikeout rate we saw last year at 20.4% is more what I think he is than the 25.7% from his 64-inning debut in 2013. In fact, given his ridiculous groundball rate, I think we could see the strikeouts tick down even more as he relies on the grounder for success. More contact often leads to more runs, though. I think we’ll see something like a 3.58 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, and 168 strikeouts in 204 innings with a 13-10 record.

I just didn’t see him improving the ERA and WHIP with relatively modest (compared to other fantasy aces) strikeout numbers. In fact, I almost landed the strikeout prediction as he fanned 169 in 208 innings. No partial credit here, though. His 2.73 ERA and 1.08 WHIP were way better than the figures I had him down for as he had a tremendous season. I’m still not putting him in the top 20 next year, though, for the same reasons.

0/8

Cody Allen leads the league in saves.

The first rule of bold predictions should be “don’t do saves-based predictions”. They might tell even less about a player’s ability than wins considering how many other factors go into them. Of course, I made two saves-based BPs so yay me. Allen did lead qualified relievers in WAR and even had an AL-high 58 games finished, but his 34 saves were well short of Mark Melancon’s 51 that actually led the league.

0/9

Brandon Maurer leads the Padres in saves.

The Padres had many issues this year, but neither Craig Kimbrel nor Joaquin Benoit were among them. Maurer was solid if unspectacular with a 3.00 ERA and 1.06 WHIP in 51 IP. His big contribution in fantasy were the seven vulture wins. His big strikeout rate as a reliever from 2014 (26%) didn’t maintain at all as he sank to just 19%, unusable for a fantasy reliever who isn’t logging saves.

0/10

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Full pieces: hitters, pitchers

So I took the 0-fer. That’s always a real possibility when you do these and this was my year for a skunking. I’m going Ted Williams on y’all next year and hitting .406 because there will be partial credit and I will get 40.6 of my 100 bold predictions correct. Mark my words*!!

 

*please don’t mark my words