In 2021, I sat down to do my draft prep and as I looked through the projections and projected lineups for the upcoming season, one name stuck out to me as a potential breakout candidate: Cedric Mullins. He had spent a majority of the last month of the 2020 season as the Orioles lead off hitter and I saw his underlying skills as something that could be built on. He was also dirt cheap in early drafts, going outside of the top 500 picks.
Is the regular season that close that it’s already time for Bold Predictions?! I’ve been doing these for many, many years and they never stop being fun. I also want to caution that I’m truly fantastic at predicting injuries. By that, I mean a good portion of my positive picks seem to regularly miss a chunk of the season while on the IL, so perhaps being listed here is more curse than complement. We shall find out if the trend continues at the end of September! Note that any bold predictions calling for an auction value or ranking by end of season will be based on our auction calculator’s default settings.
It’s bold prediction week here at RotoGraphs. Last year, I got 3.5 of my bold predictions correct which was a really strong showing. Maybe I need to go bolder — or maybe I just got lucky.
Here are five pitcher predictions and five hitter predictions; hopefully they’ll be of some use to you as the season starts up. Alongside the predictions, I’ve also included some draft data from the current offseason to get a better sense of how these players are being valued by the Ottoneu community right now.
1. George Kirby is a top-15 SP (by P/IP among pitchers w/ 100+ IP) Ottoneu Average Salary: $21.1 Ottoneu Average Draft Price: $27.5
Upon first glance, this might not seem like such a bold prediction based on George Kirby’s reputation. I think the market perceives him as an ace thanks to his phenomenal strikeout-to-walk ratio and clear top tier value in 5×5 leagues. But consider his record in Ottoneu points leagues: he’s never broken 5.0 P/IP in a single season and he topped out as the 22nd ranked SP by P/IP in 2023. His current Depth Charts projections have him at 4.9 P/IP, an exact match for what he accomplished during his first three seasons in the league and 22nd among all SP.
To break into the top-15, Kirby is going to have to figure out how to either boost his strikeout rate or cut back on his home run rate. Probably a mix of both. Last year, Kirby dealt with a spring shoulder injury that cost him two months of the season. Once he returned, his arm angle was eight degrees lower and his trademark pinpoint command was a little compromised. One hidden benefit of the lower arm angle was a flatter fastball and some additional arm-side movement for his secondaries. Both his slider and curveball had career-high whiff rates last year and if he can maintain and improve on those changed mechanics, maybe his strikeout rate can steadily tick upwards again in 2026.
As for his home run rate, Kirby actually ran the best xFIP of his career last year. His home run rate was about 2.5 points above his career norm and the culprit was likely poorer command of his two fastballs. His four-seamer has always been a little home run prone since he likes to elevate it up in the zone so often, but he allowed six homers off his sinker last year after allowing six total across his first three seasons in the big leagues.
2. Ryne Nelson is a top-25 SP (by P/IP among pitchers w/ 100+ IP) Ottoneu Average Salary: $4.2 Ottoneu Average Draft Price: $3.8
When you open up the Baseball Savant pitch arsenal leaderboard, Tarik Skubal’s changeup leads the way with a +25 run value. That checks out as it’s an absolutely devastating pitch. The next most valuable pitch in baseball is Ryne Nelson’s four-seam fastball and I can’t say I expected to see that. The whiff rate on the pitch is a little below league average for a four-seamer so Nelson is racking up all that run value by limiting the amount of damage done on contact off the pitch. There are some caveats to think about here. Run value is a counting stat and Nelson threw his heater a lot — about 61.9% of the time. By RV/100, it was the 54th best pitch at 1.5 RV/100, which is still very good but not an extreme outlier.
The problem for Nelson is that he doesn’t have a great secondary pitch to pair with his hard fastball. He made some improvements to his slider and curveball last year but one of those breaking balls needs to take another step forward to raise his overall profile. To break into the top 25, he’d essentially need to break 5.0 P/IP — he landed at 4.8 in 2025. I think he’ll continue to suppress damaging contact with his heater and find a way to earn a few more whiffs with his secondary pitches this year.
3. Janson Junk is a top-30 SP (by P/IP among pitchers w/ 100+ IP) Ottoneu Average Salary: $3.3 Ottoneu Average Draft Price: $1.1
Ok, this one might not be so bold because Janson Junk was already a top-30 SP last year, sneaking in at 26th with 4.8 P/IP over 110 innings. But 22.2 of those innings came as a reliever; Junk posted a 4.4 P/IP over 87.1 innings as a starter which would have ranked somewhere around 50th. From there, maybe this prediction seems a little more bold.
What I like about Junk is that he managed to harness his command to an elite level in 2025; among all pitchers with at least 100 IP, his 2.9% walk rate was the lowest in baseball by a pretty wide margin. The downside is, like Nelson above, he doesn’t really have a secondary pitch to rack up tons of swings and misses. That’s why his strikeout rate was just 17.2% despite an elite strikeout-to-walk ratio that approached six.
The Roster Resource depth charts have Junk penciled in as a long reliever in the Marlins bullpen, but there’s enough injury question marks in Miami’s rotation that I think Junk will eventually get a shot at starting again. The command improvements he made last year provide enough of a solid foundation that he can build off of. For a $1 flier at the end of your auction, that’s not a bad bet to make.
4. Joey Cantillo scores the most total points among Guardians starting pitchers Ottoneu Average Salary: $4.3 Ottoneu Average Draft Price: $4.4
The Guardians starting rotation is filled with a ton of promising young pitchers; Gavin Williams, Tanner Bibee, and Logan Allen로건 are all already well established in the big leagues, but Slade Cecconi, Joey Cantillo, and Parker Messick are all vying to make a bigger impact in the majors in 2026. Of that group of six youngsters, I think Cantillo has the best shot at actually breaking out in a big way this year.
It all starts with his changeup. That pitch returned a whiff rate of nearly 50% in 2025 thanks to a huge velocity differential from his heater. His breaking balls are decent — his curve got better results last year but he’s testing out a new grip on his slider this spring that could help that pitch take a step forward. The knock against him is his command, which is below average at best. He was able to cut his walk rate slightly once he was inserted into the Guardians rotation in July last year. With just a little improvement to his command and maybe a better breaking ball, Cantillo has an opportunity to take a big step forward this year.
The other half of this prediction requires Williams, Bibee, and the rest of the Guardians starters to stumble a bit — or at least fall short of Cantillo’s breakout. I think there are enough questions about each of them that I’m willing to bet that Cantillo rises to the top of the pile.
5. Chad Patrick scores the second most total points among Brewers starting pitchers Ottoneu Average Salary: $3.4 Ottoneu Average Draft Price: $2.2
I hedged this prediction just a little because there should be a lot of moving parts to the Brewers rotation this year, but I think Chad Patrick will stick in the big leagues through the whole year. Because here’s the thing, this prediction was already proven correct during the first half of last year; Patrick scored 420 points before the All-Star break, second most on the Brewers behind Freddy Peralta. Then he was pushed out of the rotation and back to Triple-A for a significant portion of the second half of the season once the Brewers pitching staff got healthy.
For his part, Patrick has a really strong repertoire. By Stuff+, he has three above average pitches and his cutter is one of the best in baseball. He had a fantastic 3.2 strikeout-to-walk ratio last year and a 3.53 FIP that exactly matched his top line results by ERA.
As for the rest of Milwaukee’s rotation, I’m not sure Brandon Woodruff can make it through an entire season, Jacob Misiorowski still has to overcome his command issues, and the rest of the rotation is young and unproven. Some of those youngsters have brighter prospect pedigrees than Patrick ever had, but they still need to establish themselves in the big leagues and Patrick has already done that.
6. Mookie Betts scores the most total points among all SS
Ottoneu Average Salary: $35.7
Ottoneu Average Draft Price: $32.9
This is as much a bet on Mookie Betts as it is a bet against Bobby Witt Jr. — although Witt wasn’t even the top scoring SS in 2025, Geraldo Perdomo was. It’s no secret that Betts’s entire season last year was derailed by the mysterious illness he caught right before the team’s spring trip to Japan. There was about a month and a half during the late summer where Betts was producing like he had at his peak which gives me some hope that he’ll be able to bounce back in a big way this year now that he’s had a full offseason to get healthy. I have some lingering concerns; namely, his contact quality dropped off pretty significantly, though that could be explained away by the loss of strength that stemmed from his spring illness.
To reach the top of the pile at shortstop, Betts will probably need to score at least 1,000 points or more. He’s done that four times in his career, and if you give him credit for the 16 games he played at short in 2023, he actually led the position in scoring that season. I have nothing against Witt but he struggled to match his otherworldly production from 2024 last year and I think that’s more in line with his true talent than his outrageous line from that breakout season.
7. Alec Bohm is a top-5 3B (by P/G among batters w/ 300+ PA) Ottoneu Average Salary: $8.3 Ottoneu Average Draft Price: $5.7
Alec Bohm was one of the guys I was on the fence about keeping this offseason. I quote, “An abysmal first month of the season is bringing down Alec Bohm’s overall numbers from 2025. From May 1 through the end of the season, he posted a .308/.356/.453 slash line, good for a 124 wRC+ and 5.4 P/G.” That P/G over those five months would have landed him ninth among all 3B last year.
I also noted that Bohm’s hot finish to the season wasn’t driven by any improvement to his underlying contact quality, but simply a career-high contact rate. More balls in play led to more positive results, even if he continued to pound the ball into the ground at too high a rate. Instead of embracing the uncertainty in his profile, I’ve decided to bet on the improvements he made to his contact rate. That’s a pretty significant change to his profile, and if he’s able to figure out how to elevate his contact just a little more often, a huge breakout could be in the cards.
8. Bryson Stott is a top-5 2B (by P/G among batters w/ 300+ PA) Ottoneu Average Salary: $8.4 Ottoneu Average Draft Price: $6.8
The argument for Bryson Stott goes a lot like the argument for Bohm above. During the second half of the season, Stott posted a 135 wRC+ and 5.1 P/G in Ottoneu. Across a full season, that would have landed him around seventh among all 2B. That late season improvement stemmed from a pretty dramatic swing change. He was able to improve the quality of his contact while still maintaining his excellent plate discipline.
Assuming the new swing mechanics carry over to this year, Stott looks well positioned for a breakout in 2026. Plus, Michael Baumann also identified Stott as a potential breakout when looking for players with similar characteristics to Geraldo Perdomo and Maikel Garcia prior to their own breakouts.
9. Spencer Horwitz is a top-12 1B (by P/G among batters w/ 300+ PA) Ottoneu Average Salary: $4.1 Ottoneu Average Draft Price: $2.8
I really liked Spencer Horwitz as a sleeper last year because he had 2B eligibility and looked like he was going to have a shot at full-time at-bats after an offseason trade to Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, wrist surgery derailed the start of his season and it took a while for his bat to get going once he made it back to the majors. During the second half of the season, he posted a 154 wRC+ and put up 5.8 P/G in Ottoneu. That would have ranked 10th among qualified 1B across the full season.
His contact quality doesn’t stand out that much but he does have an excellent approach at the plate. That gives him a solid floor and I think a fully healthy wrist will help him take a big step forward this year. The potential risk to this prediction is that he’s absolutely atrocious against left-handed pitching — his career platoon split is nearly 100 points of wOBA. If he’s relegated to the strong side of a platoon and makes a bunch of pinch hit appearances in games that he doesn’t start, his P/G will likely take a pretty big hit. Practically, you can just stash him on your fantasy team’s bench whenever the Pirates are facing a lefty, but for this prediction to come true, he needs to improve his production against same-handed pitching and figure out a way to stay out of a platoon situation.
Just like my bold prediction about Roman Anthony and Kristian Campbelllast year (which I got half right), I’m throwing some cold water on the hype surrounding these three top prospects. I did hedge a little bit because I didn’t want to be too much of a downer, but it’s really hard to make the jump from the minor leagues to the majors. It certainly seems like the Pirates, Tigers, and Cardinals are going to give these three a shot to break into the big leagues this year, probably right out of spring training, but their success should not be simply assumed to be a guarantee. Griffin is only 19! McGonigle only has 206 plate appearances above High-A! Wetherholt only has a little over 600 total plate appearances as a professional! The odds are that all three of these guys will end up being very good ballplayers eventually, but it might be a lot to ask of them to be among the best at their position right off the bat in 2026.
Bold prediction season is my favorite sub-season within draft season. Way ahead “we are drafting way too early season” and just barely edging out “prospect ranking season.” The worst sub-season within draft season is “pitchers and catchers reported two days ago and now every news alert is an injury” season. I hate that season.
But bold prediction season is the best. It brings out the absolute best of the baseball world. Everyone is putting a stake in the ground for the players they love. People are being wildly optimistic, because it is spring and it’s getting warmer out and the season hasn’t started yet so anything is possible. It just doesn’t get more fun than this.
Bold can be beautiful. Sometimes it’s downright ugly. In the case of bold fantasy predictions, it’s not in the eye of the beholder, but in the results. Since most bold predictions columns focus deep into the player pool, I decided to approach it from a different angle. Below is a set of prognostications, only for hitters in the top 100 ADP. I’ll cover one per offensive position, though they will not be presented in order of confidence, since I’m mostly confident in all of them. Be sure to let me have it if they’re downright ugly come the end of the season.
No one will ever be able take away Cal Raleigh’s magical season – only six other players and no other catchers have ever socked 60 dingers in a season. He’s a consensus second-round fantasy pick, and no other backstop is within 30 ADP spots of him. Let’s pivot from fantasy to reality: Raleigh is a beast. He rarely takes a day off, makes a quarter of his starts as Seattle’s designated hitter to give his knees a rest, and he could easily crush 40+ bombs again. How can any other catcher even come close? If Raleigh’s 2026 production more closely mirrors 2023-2024 than 2025, then 76-36-90-2-.227 won’t cut the mustard for overall C1. Especially in this new world of impact fantasy catchers who spend time at other positions or more frequently DH (Salvador Perez, Hunter Goodman) or don’t catch at all (Ben Rice). If ever there was a guy to unseat him, why not the guy Raleigh just unseated? His name is William Contreras – the top fantasy catcher in 2024 and 2023.
Contreras is coming off a down year, yet he still earned $20 in 12-team standard roto and was the overall C4, playing with a fracture in his left middle finger for much of the season. Contreras’ 1,949 plate appearances over the last three seasons are the most at the position. From 2023 to 2024, as the no. 1 backstop, he averaged 93 runs, 20 homers, 85 RBIs, 8 stolen bases, and a .284 BA. A similar 5×5 stat line in 2026 should yield another top-25 season, pitchers excluded. Contreras hits the ball hard (92 mph EV, 49% HH), produces an elite batting average at his position (in fact, for any position), and he usually throws in a few bags. With Jackson Chourio and Brice Turang hitting in front of him, and Christian Yelich and Andrew Vaughn behind, who is to say Contreras can’t set new highs in runs and runs batted in? He’s healthy, in his prime (age 28 season), and is ready to earn his crown back from the Big Dumper, assuming Cal sterilizes it first.
It’s possible we have not yet seen the best of Pasquatch. Pasquantino is a popular player and an easy guy to root for. The big guy is friendly, active on social media, and has a love for baseball analytics. He is one of just eight hitters averaging 105 or more RBIs over the last two seasons, and that’s with missing 33 games. He maintained a BB/K over 1.00 in the minors, and though it’s 0.61 in the majors, that is still above big-league average, and he’s a tough guy to punch out (13.5% career strikeout rate). Pasquantino set a career high in homers with 32 last season. Models project a slight regression, around 27, which is a very reasonable expectation. Those doubting 40 is possible would point toward league-average power metrics, such as a 91 average EV, 9% barrel rate, 45% hard-hit rate, and .191 ISO.
Moreover, his bat speed (72.5) is mediocre, and his launch angle of 16.6 degrees over the last two seasons could use a slight increase. Pasquantino’s plate discipline has been slowly waning over these past few years, and with Kauffman Stadium’s outfield walls moving in, Vinnie P might be interested in selling out a bit of contact (85% career) for more power. Kauffman’s dimension shifts are a big deal. The left and right field fences are coming in by 9-10 feet, and the wall heights are reduced by up to 18 inches. There is no debate about more homers being hit there in 2026 than in past seasons. Vinnie P may not be a batting average stalwart like he was in the minors and his rookie season, but that’s ok because the HR/RBI numbers will be epic. I believe the Royals will win the AL Central, and that Pasquantino crushes 40 this year.
Second Base – Nico Hoerner is fantasy’s top second baseman
“Are you trying to tell me a guy who has never hit 10 homers in a season is going to be the top producer at his position?” That’s exactly what I’m telling you. In fact, that’s exactly what happened last season when Brice Turang (who came in with a career-high seven home runs) was the only second baseman to earn $20+ in roto. This one should qualify as the least bold call of all, since the bar for being the overall 2B1 isn’t high. The only others here in the ADP 100 are Turang, Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Ketel Marte, and only a few from the field below Hoerner could even be considered dark horse candidates. Chisholm and Marte have had their share of injury woes, though both are strong candidates. Turang is firmly entrenched in the 2B1 conversation, but what if the home runs (18) and outlier batting average (.288; .262 xBA) aren’t repeated, and the swipes remain in the 20-30 range? This is a fantasy opportunity for Hoerner – an elite contact hitter and base-stealer on a talented veteran-infused lineup to tie it all together with a bow of 16 dingers? A 90-16-66-36-.292 line could earn him the top spot, and they’re all numbers he’s produced before, sans the homers.
The 30/30 Club isn’t as exclusive as it once was. No hitters accomplished the feat between 2013 and 2017. Since then, there have been two (2018), two (2019), one (2021 – Cedric Mullins), none in 2022, four (2023), and three (2024). In 2025, there were seven: José Ramírez, Julio Rodriguez, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Juan Soto, Francisco Lindor, Corbin Carroll and Pete Crow-Armstrong. Bobby Witt Jr. fell short (22/38), but accomplished the feat in 2023 and 2024. Gunnar Henderson and Zach Neto can join the club in 2026. Henderson only missed six games last season, but played through left shoulder impingement and inflammation for most of the year. He still stole 30 bases on 35 attempts and hit 17 home runs. In the previous season, Henderson crushed 37 bombs. His average exit velocity (92.1 mph), bat speed (75.3 mph) and hard-hit rate (49.2%) all ranked in the top 15% of hitters last season.
With Pete Alonso, Taylor Ward, and a loaded, improving offense around him, Henderson is very capable of 30/30 and a run at the AL MVP award. Neto produced 23/30 in his first full season (602 PA, 2024), and followed up with 26/26 in just 554 plate appearances in 2025. His average exit velocity (91 mph) and hard-hit rate (46.6%) were both well above average, and he nearly doubled his barrel rate from 2024 (8.8%) to 2025 (14%). The key for Neto to get there is, of course, health. Though not just his own, but that of veteran Mike Trout, whose presence in the lineup always has a positive impact on those around him. Despite his second/third-round ADP, Neto is still somewhat underrated and should make a name for himself on the national stage this year. Henderson and Neto join the 30/30 Club this season!
There have only been two $60+ seasons, per our Player Rater – Shohei Ohtani’s 50/50 season from 2024 and Ronald Acuña Jr.’s in 2023. That season, Acuña stayed healthy, amassed 735 plate appearances and produced an insane line: 149 R, 41 HR, 106 RBI, 73 SB and a .337 average. If anyone can beat out Ohtani, Judge or Witt for fantasy’s top earner this season, it’s Acuña. I’m buying in on another epic season as the leadoff man for a stacked Atlanta Braves offense in his age-28 season. Last season, he slashed .290/.417/.518, hit 21 dingers in 412 PAs, and flaunted healthy power metrics – 92.7 mph EV, 15.7% BRL, 52.5% HH. He kept his running to a minimum (nine swipes on 10 attempts) last season, but ran wild in winter ball (11 SB in 71 PA), and stole another two in his first four spring training games. Acuña is as healthy as he’s been since that epic 2023 season and is hungry for a repeat. With his ability for elite production across all five standard roto categories, and the fact that Ohtani isn’t projected to run wild like in 2024 (63 attempts), Acuña will edge out the field and be the king of fantasy once again.
Bonus: Kyle Tucker leads the National League in RBIs
Very few folks outside of those who drafted him or who bleed Dodger Blue want to see this one come to fruition. Tucker has been catching lots of grief over the past year between his lowkey demeanor, missing substantial time with injuries, and signing a huge AAV contract ($57.2M per for four years), loaded with deferrals. When healthy, he is one of the most consistent and well-rounded producers in fantasy, averaging .278/.353/.517, 30 HR, 23 SB, 84 R, 104 RBI and a 138 wRC+ over his first three full seasons (2021-2023). His production pace was elite in his last two, injury-marred seasons as well. Tucker is in a position to produce a career year in his first season with the Dodgers. Manager Dave Roberts intends to have him bat second between Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts, which would line Tucker up to score more runs than he drives in. It’s highly likely that Tucker earns most of his at-bats this season hitting third between Betts and projected cleanup man, Freddie Freeman – and that’s exactly how I foresee the top of this lineup materializing. FanGraphs Depth Charts (FGDC) currently projects Tucker with the fourth-most RBIs (99) in the NL behind Ohtani, Kyle Schwarber, and Juan Soto. I’ve got Tucker with 126 and the RBI NL crown.
It is that time of year again! It is time for BOLD predictions. As a reminder, these are not necessarily things I think will happen, but things I think could happen if a player reaches his 75-90% outcome. If I get 2-3 of these right, I will be pretty happy. Make sure you tell me where I am completely off base and what bold predictions you have for the 2026 season.
For all the rankings mentioned in those bold takes, I will use our 12 end-of-season fantasy values from the Auction Calculator.
1. The baby gloves come off, and the Nationals allow James Wood to break the MLB strikeout record.
Last season, the Nationals limited Wood’s plate appearances later in the season (average 105 PA in the first three months, 94 PA over the last three). Even with the throttling of playing time, Wood missed tying the total by just two strikeouts.
I’ve got 10 coming with one per position at C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, RP plus two at both OF and SP. While the first one will be catcher, we’re not going around the horn in that order, rather we’ll get spicier as we go through these in a Hot Ones-esque sort of way. You may have a different spice meter and I’m happy to hear if you think I have one firmly out of place.
C: Will Smith is the #1 Catcher on the Player Rater
How He Gets There: Mostly just by being himself. His career high 153 wRC+ last year came in just 110 games which relegated him to C7. His .345 BABIP seems ripe for regression against a .285 career mark, but he hit the ball much better last year to fuel that surge. It wasn’t just a bunch of bleeders and doinkers driving some extra hits in a sub-500 PA sample. I see him holding at least some of those gains while returning to the >500 PA plateau and easily paying off that C9 pricepoint. The competition is a bigger hurdle for this one than Smith’s skill but that’s also why it’s my opening salvo. They’ll get spicier!
This article highlights my bold predictions for the 2026 fantasy baseball season. Like last year, I’ll set the over/under at three of these being right, but my goal is more to give the reader ideas than to maximize acccuracy. As the creator of OOPSY, my bold predictions often lean on OOPSY outlier projections, although I will often cite other projection systems as well. I have listed my bold predictions in approximate order of least to most bold.
October… the quiet time for fantasy baseball. Not for everybody, of course… I see y’all already running Draft Champions and Draft 50s over at the NFBC. I’ll be there next month. For the majority of the community, it’s review time and we here at Fangraphs have been running through our Bold Predictions to see how they went. BPs are always fun because they aren’t meant to be picks that have a super high likelihood of coming true, or else they wouldn’t be all that bold. It’s about to exploring the what could feasibly happen if things really line up but it’s far from the most likely outcome.
So even landing a few feels good when checking the over the slate in the October, let’s see how I did:
Jeez, if you had told me that Suzuki was going to put up 32 HR/103 RBI back in March, I would’ve said this one is a lock. And yet, it’s not only a loss, but a resounding one. He was the 15th OF last year with a 21 HR/73 RBI/74 R/16 SB/.283 AVG season, but fell to 25th because his AVG dropped nearly 40 points to .245 while the SB total tumbled to just 5. It wasn’t a bad season for him, but we’re 0-for-1: .000
