I joined the Army when I was seventeen years old. 9-11 had just happened and I was determined to serve my country in the same way as my father, during Vietnam, and my grandfather, during World War II. After scoring in the 99th percentile on the ASVAB, the military’s entrance exam, I had my pick of virtually any job I wanted. Being young and cocky, I decided I wanted to be an interrogator. To do so, I had to take and pass another test called the Defense Language Aptitude Battery (DLAB). Read the rest of this entry »

At the time of this writing, there are 37 major league hitters with a wRC+ of 150 or higher. There are the usual suspects: Bryce Harper, Mike Trout, and Nolan Arenado are on the leaderboard to no one’s surprise. There are exciting young prospects, including Mitch Haniger, Aaron Judge, and Joey Gallo. Then there are unexpected names like Eric Thames, Cesar Hernandez, and Robbie Grossman.

Lengthy articles could be, and have been, written about any of the players above. One player who hasn’t received much publicity despite some relatively prolonged success is Grossman.

He checks in with a 158 wRC+ in 67 plate appearances so far this year. Steamer projects a .322 wOBA and 99 wRC+ for the rest of the season (ROS), and that projection puts him just a few ticks behind his highly-touted teammate Max Kepler. Although Kepler is three years younger and may have a higher ceiling, the point is that name recognition can play a pretty big role in how we analyze players.

Also, Grossman used to be bad. From 2013 to 2015, he had just a .281 wOBA and 77 wRC+ in 202 plate appearances against left-handed pitching, despite being a switch hitter. Since 2016, however, Grossman has a .417 wOBA and 166 wRC+ in 170 plate appearances against lefties. Even with his early-career struggles against lefties, Grossman now has a lifetime .344 wOBA and 118 wRC+ against them. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I unveiled my bold hitter league leaders, with the acknowledgement that these are a lot tougher to hit than the generic Bold Predictions. The pitching side of the ledger is a bit easier, but still difficult, of course. Given that there is more luck and factors outside the specific pitcher’s control involved that shape his surface results, it’s more conceivable that a non-favorite leads the league in a category.

In an effort to avoid double dipping and naming the same pitcher in two categories, there may have been a slightly better bold choice for a particular category. I opted to come up with different names in each. Also keep in mind that it is difficult to balance boldness with realistic. I eliminated many names that I didn’t think were bold, but maybe you do. I also eliminated names that have no real chance at leading in the category.

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They are here and they’re spectacular:

JAMES PAXTON IS A TOP-15 ARM.

I ended up with Paxton slotted at #33 in the March rankings update and by the time I was in the throes of my drafts, I was taking him as high as the late-20s. A 10-15 rank jump at this level would still be significant. Last year, some late-20s arms included Michael Fulmer, Cole Hamels, and Julio Teheran, all of whom had great seasons, but the likes of Noah Syndergaard, Tanner Roark, and Masahiro Tanaka were at the backend of the top-15. Paxton needs to stay healthy for the first time in his career, but the skills are there.

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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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