Every season, in addition to posting my standard bold predictions, I up the ante with my bold league leaders. If you thought nailing a bold prediction was tough, the bold league leaders is even more difficult! Just getting one right is worthy of celebration. Because these are bold, I automatically disqualify players I don’t personally believe should be considered bold. So I challenge myself and it typically causes me to bat .000 (though last year I actually hit one!).

We’ll start with the hitting league leaders in each of the five categories, split up by league.

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Matthew Dewoskin and I are the hosts of the Field of Streams podcast here at RotoGraphs during the season, but we wanted to get in on the excitement that is Bold Predictions once again after we had a respectable showing in 2016. Like last year, we will each pick five.

Bonus prediction: the show will be back starting on Sunday, running twice a week with pitcher and hitter picks from each of us for every day of the season. Additionally, Matt will be getting a break from his White Sox and covering the Brewers at Reviewing The Brew.

1. Matt: Rougned Odor doesn’t crack 15 homers, makes Grey Albright cry at least twice

Rangers second baseman Rougned Odor came out of nowhere to slug 33 homers, drive in 88 runs, and make the Razztastic Grey Albright spend the offseason swooning. Odor also did this with a HR:FB ratio of 17.0%. His previous career high was 11.8%. Twelve of his home runs were rated as ‘Just Enough’ and four were considered “Lucky” by the ESPN home run tracker. Those “Just Enoughs” and “Luckys” will be called a different word in 2017. Caught. Odor is unlikely to repeat his career year and will make more than one fantasy expert shed a few tears when he has eight homers at the All-Star Break.

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Others have beat me to the punch on predicting great success for Daniel Norris and throwing cold water on Robbie Ray, but I’m guessing no one has yet to argue that Tom Koehler will outperform a pitcher who is being drafted among the top 60 starters. Here is my case for Koehler and nine other bold predictions with slightly lower degrees of difficulty.

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I’m barely getting these up before the start of the season, but given my track record with bold predictions, you probably shouldn’t listen to me anyway.

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Last year, I set a new personal record, hitting on four of my 10 bold predictions. Let’s go for five this time!

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Across the network recently, we’ve featured writers sharing their bold predictions for the impending 2017 season. Since I’m more of a follower than a leader with little sense of individuality, this is a path that I will also be traversing. However, I’ll be limiting my bold and sweeping declarations to the spot where I make my living on this site: the hot corner. Let’s look at a few potentially terribly, and very likely, misguided opinions that I have about the third base position heading into the new season.

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“Be not too bold.” So wrote Edmund Spenser in his 1590 best-seller The Faerie Queene, a work so obscure, so archaic, and so tedious that even we can’t stand reading it. And anyway, it’s bad advice, at least when it comes to something called Bold Predictions, and at least for us Birchwood Brothers, whose stock in trade is identifying the unheralded and unsuccessful before they become heralded and unsuccessful. Thus, we pledge: nobody among our ten bold predictions cost more than $1 in the just-completed Tout Wars mixed auction. Indeed, some were reserve-round picks, and some weren’t chosen at all. And to keep our promise, we’re starting with a bonus pick, which includes guys who went for more than $1, though not much more. Thus, in ascending order of improbability, we have: Read the rest of this entry »

Spring is here, and with it comes a renewed sense of optimism for yours truly. The never-ending cold rain and oppressive grayness of my first winter in Seattle is giving way to slightly warmer rain and a lighter shade of gray, and the sun even made an appearance last Tuesday. I’m more excited for baseball season than ever, seeing as I finally live in a major-league city for the first time in my life. Also, WrestleMania and Opening Day — objectively the best two days of the year — land on consecutive days in 2017.

Unfortunately, this time of year also means I get my annual opportunity to make a fool of myself with my Bold Predictions column. The last time I did well with these, I was still in my twenties and The Undertaker’s undefeated WrestleMania streak was intact. I’m not saying that turning 30 (or 31…or 32…) definitively altered my ability to make borderline-crazy-yet-somewhat-possible baseball predictions. However, right around that same time, I developed a bald spot on the top of my head. Without the protective layer of hair, a great many thoughts started escaping my head, and I became much less smart.

What’s changed now? I’m so glad you asked. I recently discovered the incredible Thought Screen Helmet! Originally intended to shield your brain from alien mind-control waves, it turns out that the Thought Screen Helmet not only keeps the aliens out, it also helps keep your thoughts in! Furthermore, the Thought Screen Helmet sports a great track record, with “Only one failure since 1998.”

With my Thought Screen Helmet firmly strapped in, I’m ready to unleash my new and improved Bold Predictions, now featuring occasional accuracy! Hopefully.

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Last year was my first attempt at bold predictions, and it didn’t go very well. I was happy about a couple of my calls (namely Hendricks and Story) but overall I was undone by injuries and some bone-headed hot takes. I’m not sure this year will be any different, but let’s see what my crystal ball shows for 2017:

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It’s time again for all of us to do our 10 Bold Prediction articles. So here are mine:

1. Robbie Ray finishes as a top-10 starter in the NL

I’m on the hype train for Ray, who is currently going off the board as the No. 57 starter in NFBC drafts around 214th overall. The slider is legit, he was much harder to hit in the second half (.313 wOBA against) than the first (.347), he can induce grounders (45.7 percent) and I fully believe throwing to Jeff Mathis will help him quite a bit. The sky’s the limit here.

2. Joe Panik bounces back, finishes as a top-10 top-15 NFBC second baseman Read the rest of this entry »