Archive for Bold Predictions

Last year, I got 3.5 of my bold predictions correct. Was I able to channel that boldness into another successful round of predictions this year? In a word: no.

1. George Kirby is a top-15 SP (by P/IP among pitchers w/ 100+ IP) ❌
2026 P/IP: 3.7 (95th)

Ouch. George Kirby suffered through the worst season of his career in 2026. His strikeout-to-walk ratio dropped from its normal elite level to a merely good 3.2 and a high BABIP saw far too many batted balls drop in for hits. His ERA has now increased in four successive seasons while his FIP spiked up to 3.90 thanks to fewer strikeouts and a slightly higher walk rate.

Looking under the hood, it doesn’t seem like anything is dramatically amiss. He’s still pounding the zone and getting batters to chase out of the zone at an above average rate. His swinging strike rate dipped a little however, particularly in two-strike counts, which paints the picture of a pitcher who can get ahead of batters but struggles to put them away with an out pitch. The stuff looks solid and the command is elite but it just kind of feels like the league has figured out Kirby’s approach and he’s struggled to make an adjustment back.

Kirby’s fantasy value for 2027 will likely take a significant hit, but his history of elite strikeout-to-walk ratios is just too enticing to give up on. I’d be interested in seeing if he bounces back next year if his value winds up dropping into the $10-$14 range.

2. Ryne Nelson is a top-25 SP (by P/IP among pitchers w/ 100+ IP) ❌
2026 P/IP: 2.8 (N/A)

Ryne Nelson missed three months of the season with an elbow injury, compiling 87.1 innings altogether. That prevented him from meeting the minimum IP threshold for this prediction, but also, he was extremely bad when he was healthy and pitching. His fastball, which had produced so much value last year, wound up taking a huge step backwards. The contact suppression he enjoyed with his heater didn’t carry over into 2026 and none of his secondary pitches took a step forward. He ended up allowing 18 home runs in 15 starts — a death knell for any pitcher in Ottoneu — and there don’t appear to be any redeeming underlying metrics that indicate a potential bounce back next year.

3. Janson Junk is a top-30 SP (by P/IP among pitchers w/ 100+ IP) ❌
2026 P/IP: 3.8 (92nd)

Junk managed to spend the majority of the year pitching out of the Marlins starting rotation and put up a perfectly average season. His ERA- was exactly 100 with his FIP- sitting two points lower at 98. Unfortunately, that didn’t translate into good or even decent fantasy production. His elite walk rate that looked so enticing last year jumped back up to 6.3%, still better than league average but certainly not as good as the 2.9% mark he produced in 2025. His strikeout rate hardly budged which meant his strikeout-to-walk ratio dropped back down to a more mediocre 2.7.

While Junk may not be in line for a huge breakout until he can find a true swing-and-miss pitch, his excellent command does mean he’ll have stretches of usefulness in fantasy. For instance, from July 26 through September 4, he ran a 2.08 ERA and a 3.10 FIP across eight starts. Don’t count on him to carry your fantasy squad in 2027 but I think he’ll be a fine option in deep formats like Ottoneu.

4. Joey Cantillo scores the most total points among Guardians starting pitchers ❌
2026 Total Points: 672 (4th on Guardians)

If only I had gone with Parker Messick for this prediction — I liked Messick but thought Cantillo had a clearer path to a full-time role in the Guardians rotation. For his part, Cantillo was pretty solid throughout the season, making 30 starts and three relief appearances with a 3.62 ERA and a 3.98 FIP. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to hone his command to truly breakout; his walk rate actually rose a tick to 11.8%. His trademark changeup and curveball were both excellent at generating swings and misses, but his fastball was knocked around a bit, undercutting his high strikeout rate a bit.

As far as the rest of the Guardians rotation went, Messick obviously had the breakout rookie season but Gavin Williams was brilliant as well. And despite Cantillo pitching better from an P/IP standpoint, Tanner Bibee wound up earning 18 more points than Cantillo thanks to the 29 extra innings pitched from Bibee. You probably weren’t disappointed in Cantillo’s season if you rostered him in fantasy, but it definitely wasn’t the breakout I was predicting.

5. Chad Patrick scores the second most total points among Brewers starting pitchers ❌
2026 Total Points: 535 (N/A)

This prediction was proven incorrect almost immediately after the season began. Chad Patrick made a couple of starts out of the rotation but was quickly shuffled off to the bullpen in a bulk role and then slowly transitioned to a flexible reliever who could handle multiple innings or work in high leverage spots. He wound up earning as many saves (six) as he made starts, and added 11 holds to boot. If you give him credit for those relief innings, he technically earned the fourth most points among “starters” on the Brewers.

I still really like his profile. His cutter continued to be a solid pitch and his four-seam fastball took a step forward in shorter stints out of the bullpen. The issue is the flexibility of his role with the Brewers. They used him in nearly every single kind of situation throughout the season and that lack of consistent role undermined his fantasy value. I have no idea how Milwaukee will use him next year, which makes it difficult to recommend rostering him until he has a solidified role.

6. Mookie Betts scores the most total points among all SS ❌
2026 Total Points: 642 (17th among SS)

Well, Bobby Witt Jr. didn’t come close to breaking 1,000 points — the Royals shortstop finished the season with 865 points — so that part of this prediction came true. Unfortunately, Mookie Betts was even further away from 1,000 points with just 642, 17th at the position. There was a stretch at the end of the season where Betts was producing like he had during his peak; from August 10 onward, he posted a 168 wRC+ with 10 home runs. That provided a spark for any fantasy team who had held onto him for the championship stretch run. I actually picked him up in mid-August on one of my teams vying for a title and he helped immensely. That doesn’t hide the fact that he put up an 84 wRC+ across the first four months of the season. At this point, it’s pretty clear that he’s hit the decline phase of his career and our evaluation of his current talent needs to be divorced from his MVP-caliber past.

7. Alec Bohm is a top-5 3B (by P/G among batters w/ 300+ PA) ❌
2026 P/G: 4.1 (32nd among 3B)

Like Betts, Alec Bohm enjoyed a late season hot streak to salvage what had been a pretty miserable season. Prior to August 9, he had posted a dismal 73 wRC+. He compiled a 136 wRC+ over the final two months of the season, but that was far too little, too late to make up for the rough start to the year.

Heading into the season, I pointed to Bohm’s career-high contact rate in 2025 as a sign of an impending breakout. Well, his contact rate slid back down to his previous career norms and his batted ball profile was still heavily skewed towards groundball contact. An extremely low BABIP sabotaged his season and I’m not sure there are any positives to take forward in 2027. Bohm is who he is, and his approach just isn’t geared towards fantasy optimized production.

8. Bryson Stott is a top-5 2B (by P/G among batters w/ 300+ PA) ❌
2026 P/G: 4.6 (19th among 2B)

Second base wound up being a surprisingly strong position in 2026. Stott produced the best season of his career but he was only the 19th ranked 2B by P/G. In 2025, his 4.6 P/G would have ranked 11th at the position. While that kind of production wasn’t close to being top-5, you were probably happy with Stott as a MI or the first MI off your bench in Ottoneu.

I’m not hopping off the Stott train either. He improved his batted ball quality this year, posted the highest ISO of his career, and pushed his walk rate over 10%. Yes, this might be his ceiling, but I also want to believe there’s just a little bit more to wring out of his bat. After all, from the beginning of June through mid August, he posted a 135 wRC+. He shifted his approach to be geared towards producing more contact in the air to the pull side in 2026 but he could lean into that even more next year.

9. Spencer Horwitz is a top-12 1B (by P/G among batters w/ 300+ PA) ❌
2026 P/G: 4.1 (43rd among 1B)

I probably should have paid more attention to Horwitz’s poor contact quality. I thought his solid approach at the plate could overcome that lack of oomph in his bat, but his contact quality slipped even further in 2026. He also dealt with a few minor injuries during the season, including a neck issue, a hamstring strain, and a concussion. Prior to that hamstring injury, he had compiled a 132 wRC+ and was a key member of the Pirates rejuvenated offense. He suffered the concussion while rehabbing from that leg injury and just didn’t look the same over the final two months of the season.

10. Two of Konnor Griffin, Kevin McGonigle, or JJ Wetherholt will not be starting caliber players at shortstop in 2026 ❌
McGonigle P/G: 5.9 (4th among SS)
Griffin P/G: 4.9 (10th among SS)
Wetherholt P/G: 4.7 (15th among SS)

Kevin McGonigle is going to win AL Rookie of the Year and you were absolutely thrilled with the production he compiled during his first taste of the majors. He looks like a genuine superstar. Konnor Griffin didn’t have as smooth a transition to the big leagues and missed about three months of the season with an elbow strain and a finger injury. He just barely crossed the 300 PA threshold, and managed to post the 10th highest P/G among SS when he was on the field. If he was on your fantasy team, you probably started him while he was healthy, but that missed time was a significant blow to his overall value. Wetherholt ended the season as the 15th ranked SS by P/G, which puts him just outside the “starting caliber” threshold (assuming a 12 team league). Still, I think you were pretty happy with Wetherholt’s production during his rookie season, even if he didn’t immediately produce like a star.

Even though you could technically call this prediction true thanks to Griffin’s lost playing time and Wetherholt’s league average production, I think I missed the mark on this prediction. All three of these youngsters capably made the transition to the big leagues. It wasn’t smooth sailing for Griffin or Wetherholt like it was for McGonigle, but I think you’re happy to roster any of these three infielders and will probably be keeping them on your fantasy team for a long while.

Let’s take a look at how my BPs went last year!

Original Piece 

C: Will Smith is the #1 Catcher on the Player Rater

Full Line: .285 AVG-25 HR-78 RBI-84 R-1 SB

Result: Alright, we come stumbling out of the gate, not only falling shy of the mark but getting a brutal half season from Smith. He hit .260/.355/.426 with 10 HRs en route to the 25th ranked C on the Player Rater. I think this might be my stop with Smith. I bought in big the last two years and came out 1 up, 1 down, though both shortened by injury. Entering his age-32 season, he has just 712 PA the last two seasons after four straight reaching 500. Pair that with the booming catcher market and I expect to be looking elsewhere for my C1 next season. 0-for-1

SS: Nasim Nuñez Steals 40 Bases

Full Line: .272-7-53-48-43

Result: You’d have to be a complete idiot to predict anything north of 40 here. Imagine thinking he could steal 50, that’d be crazy embarrassing! Nuñez did nab an MLB-best 49 bases but did so little else around them that he landed just 173rd among hitters on the Player Rater and 53rd at middle infield, qualifying at both positions. His .209 AVG was a huge negative while you also had to make up the negatives of just 1 HR, 37 RBI, and 55 R. Thankfully, I only focused on his SBs in the Bold Prediction, but his season perfectly underscores why I have such an aversion to rabbits. 1-for-2

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There was no joy in Gutville as my 2026 bold preseason predictions proved fruitless. I intentionally focused on early-round hitters, so later-round targets like Jordan Walker, Alec Burleson, Logan Henderson, and Drew Rasmussen had no chance of making the cut. Read and laugh at my preseason bold predictions by position among the top 100 ADP.

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Back in early March, when we were young and naive, full of hope and optimism, not yet beat down by the Tommy John surgeries and broken hamates of the world, I shared my 10 bold predictions for the 2026 fantasy season.

I sorted those predictions from “coldest to boldest” so I’ll go through them in that order here. I guess that means if I miss on the first couple, things could get really ugly, huh?

My goal in evaluating these will be to ask three questions: 1) was I right? 2) was this prediction helpful for fantasy drafters? and 3) do I expect to double down on this for 2027?

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With the season over, we now look back before we first look back and see what we got right and what we got wrong. Today, we begin by looking at my Bold Predictions article from March. Spoiler Alert: It did not go great. 

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It’s bold prediction review time! Refresh your memory with my original theses driving these predictions.

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David Banks-Imagn Images

Here is my bold predictions piece from March, but let’s dive right into the recap:

1. The baby gloves come off, and the Nationals allow James Wood to break the MLB strikeout record.

Right idea, wrong player.

Wood ended up with just 179 K this season after missing most of August.

Colson Montgomery stepped up with 227 K to beat the previous high held by Mark Reynolds by four strikeouts.

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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. 

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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.

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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.

10. Two of Konnor Griffin, Kevin McGonigle, or JJ Wetherholt will not be starting caliber players at shortstop in 2025

Just like my bold prediction about Roman Anthony and Kristian Campbell last 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.