Reviewing my Bold Predictions each season involves a little bit of back-patting, and a whole lot of laughing at what an idiot I was just a few months ago. The sweet spot for these predictions is getting three or four of them right per season. How did I do this year?

In short, not great, but not terrible. Only two of the following predictions happened, but the majority got close, or at least still look reasonable in hindsight. On the other hand, prediction No. 5 might be my worst-ever in three years of Bold Predictions…

10. James Shields is not a top-65 starting pitcher.

Shields was the consensus No. 40 SP by our experts heading into the season, and I was not about to agree. Shields’ 2015 saw him post his best-ever strikeout rate, but also his career-worst walk rate. After a hot start in April and May, the bump in strikeouts vanished, and his walk rate soared.

With this prediction, I was betting on the continuation of Shields’ June through September 2015 production, and I bet correctly. According to Jeff Zimmerman’s end-of-season rankings, Shields was this season’s second-worst pitcher. The only pitcher who damaged his fantasy owners more than Shields was Alfredo Simon.

We’re off to a good start here.

1-0

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Yesterday, I reviewed my 2016 bold hitter league leaders and was ecstatic for even getting just one correct. Today, I’ll check in on my bold pitcher league leaders. Let’s see if I could match my hitter success. Check out my original article with full reasoning behind my choices.

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Like much of the Rotographs’ staff, I made some BOLD predictions to prior to the start of the season. Like fellow Rotographer Alex Chamberlain, I was also impatient and also did a midseason review of them. Unlike Alex, I do know how to use brackets. 

1) Everyone will regret drafting Bryce Harper in the top 3.

At the beginning of the preseason, I wrote an article arguing against drafting Bryce Harper in the top three of standard leagues. It outlined his extreme jumps in many of his underlying statistics and my belief that many of these were not sustainable.

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This was my first year publishing my bold predictions, and I have to admit that it was difficult to balance making truly bold predictions while still offering useful insight for fantasy owners. Let’s take a look and see how my predictions look now:

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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. So let’s see how I did this year. Refresh your memory of my initial reasoning behind my choices here.

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I usually get three or four of these Bold Predictions right every year, and I’ve grown comfortable with that level of success. Any more and they aren’t bold enough, any less, and they’re useless. That said, wait till you see number one. It’s a doozy. It’s *so* wrong that it should probably invalidate all my hits. It’s *so* wrong that I’m questioning why any of you are here right now. It’s *so* wrong I want to throw crap.

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I once made some bold predictions for 2016. Then I checked in on them. Some looked OK, some not so much.

The season is over now, and I can’t think of any better way to distract myself from the multiple painful ends to otherwise fantastic seasons I just endured than to review my bold predictions. Fellow RotoGrapher Justin Mason kindly said he “think[s I] nailed the boldness level. He also said, “Alex, you don’t know how [to] use [brackets].” Pffffft, whatever, Justin.

I would say I’m proud of these predictions, but honestly, I barely remember half of them. There are three I remember fondly, though, and I’m excited to see how they turned out. Let’s do this!

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Prior to the season, RotoGraphs writers submitted lists of 10 bold predictions. We’re kind of known for them. After playing it semi-safe in 2015, I decided to go especially bold in 2016. The results, as you might expect, are a bunch of big whiffs. Imagine Steven Moya’s violent swing. When he connects, he’s in good shape. He’ll often miss the ball by multiple feet.

Before we get into reviewing my 2016 picks, I’d like to call one back from last year. Behold:

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Truth be told, I’ve been dreading this piece for months. Before joining Rotographs this season, I always enjoyed this series as much for revisiting the predictions at the end of the year as reading them in the first place. But of the 30 or so pieces I’ve written this year, Bold Predictions is easily my worst. Not only did I miss but I missed spectacularly. I missed in part because I went too bold but most painfully because I was sloppy. Want to know what I mean by sloppy? I predicted Greg Bird would out-perform Mark Teixeira. Seven weeks after he was lost for the season. I also got too specific, ambitiously adding milestones when broad declarations would have more than sufficed. I’m not going to enjoy what follows but without further ado, let’s Bring the Pain.

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The regular season is officially in the books! Sad faces galore. I hope all of you, every single one of you, won a league. Hopefully, it was thanks to some of my bold predictions (which, as I type this, I still haven’t looked at since the preseason). I have no idea how I did, so let’s be surprised together. For a referesher on my thought process behind each prediction, check out the original article.

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