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
Just like it’s important to learn from our mistakes, reviewing bold predictions serves a similar purpose. By their very nature, I shouldn’t be getting many of these predictions right, but it’s a good practice to go back and figure out if there are any lessons to be gleaned from my hubris. And it’s fun to gloat about the ones I got right!
1. Cristopher Sánchez is a top-10 SP (by P/IP among pitchers w/ 100+ IP) ✅ 2025 P/IP: 5.82 (6th overall)
Let’s start things off with a bang! Sánchez followed up his breakout season in 2024 with an even better season a year later. The velocity jump that he showed off during spring training stuck around all season long, though the cutter that he was tinkering with never showed up in the regular season. Evidently he didn’t need that fourth pitch; his changeup and slider were more than good enough on their own. It was those two pitches that convinced me that he could take a big step forward when making this prediction at the start of the season; they were both elite offerings in ‘24 and indicated to me that he had some untapped potential to take a step forward. Sánchez has the perfect profile for Ottoneu: an elite groundball rate and corresponding low home run totals and he just added a ton of strikeouts this year.
Based on the same process that led me to pick Sánchez in 2026, here’s a small spoiler for my 2026 bold predictions: Ryne Nelson’s four-seam fastball was the second most valuable pitch in baseball by total run value and Janson Junk’s sweeper was the seventh most valuable pitch in baseball by RV/100.
2. Reese Olson is a top-25 SP (by P/IP among pitchers w/ 100+ IP) ❌ 2025 P/IP: 4.89 (N/A)
The same process that led me to pick Sánchez above also led me to pick Olson here. Unfortunately, his injury history was a factor I opted to ignore which wound up sinking this prediction. After suffering a shoulder injury in 2024 that led to a two-month stint on the IL, that same issue popped up again this year in late July. He also dealt with a finger injury that cost him a month and a half of the season. Between those two injuries, he only pitched 68.2 innings in ‘25, though they were high quality innings. His changeup and slider — the two pitches that give him such a high ceiling — were just as good this year and give me some hope that he could see a breakout if he could ever stay healthy for a full season.
For what it’s worth, his P/IP would have ranked 26th among starting pitchers with at least 100 IP if he had hit that threshold. The process for making this prediction was solid, but his shoulder just didn’t allow it to hit.
3. Eduardo Rodriguez is a top-50 SP (by P/IP among pitchers w/ 100+ IP) ❌ 2025 P/IP: 3.08 (108th overall)
This prediction was banking on a healthy season from Rodriguez. Well, he only had a short three-week stint on the IL with a minor shoulder injury and ended up throwing 154.1 innings this year. Unfortunately, they were extremely poor quality innings. The interplay between his fastball and changeup has deteriorated to the point where both pitches returned negative run value in 2025. At this point in his career, he’s simply too hittable even though his strikeout-to-walk ratio looked okay. He had some good stretches during the season, but the profile is far too volatile to rely on.
4. Max Meyer scores the most total points among Marlins starting pitchers ❌ 2025 Total Points: 210 (7th on Marlins)
Meyer had an exciting spring training after debuting a sinker and sweeper to bring his pitch mix up to five. He actually started the season off with five solid starts and his ERA and FIP were hovering around three through the end of April. May was rough and then he hit the IL with a hip impingement in June and was lost for the season. The two new pitches he introduced to his repertoire weren’t the huge difference-makers that he needed them to be, though his peripherals weren’t terrible across his 12 starts in 2025.
As if Meyer’s struggles and injuries weren’t enough, the Marlins ended up holding onto Sandy Alcantara for the whole season, and no surprise, he wound up leading the team in total points.
5. David Festa scores the second most total points among Twins starting pitchers ❌ 2025 Total Points: 180 (7th on Twins)
The process behind this prediction was sound. I saw a bunch of risk in Minnesota’s starting rotation and figured that Festa would be the beneficiary of some of that risk. Joe Ryan was brilliant and easily led the team in total points, but Pablo López lost three months to a forearm injury, Bailey Ober took a huge step backwards, and Chris Paddack and Simeon Woods Richardson were both as mediocre as ever. Where I got things wrong was thinking that Festa could emerge from this mess as a key contributor. His peripherals were solid during his debut season in 2024, but injuries derailed any progress he hoped to make this year. He was diagnosed with a mild form of thoracic outlet syndrome in September and his future as a productive major leaguer is very much up in the air.
6. Brent Rooker is a top-3 OF (by P/G among batters w/ 300+ PA) ❌ 2025 P/G: 5.7 (16th among OF)
Rooker earned OF eligibility by mid-May but instead of repeating his huge breakout from 2024, he merely settled in as a very good hitter with a .349 wOBA this year. That was good enough to return $38.7 in value according to the Auction Calculator, but nowhere good enough to appear in the top 3 OF in Ottoneu, let alone the top 10.
The process was decent here. Rooker crushed the ball at home in Sacramento’s minor league ballpark (.372 wOBA at home), but he took a significant step back on the road (.326 wOBA on the road). The good news is that his plate discipline numbers were better than ever and his batted ball peripherals didn’t take a nose dive.
7. Anthony Volpe is a top-12 SS (by P/G among batters w/ 300+ PA) ❌ 2025 P/G: 3.6 (34th among SS)
I believed a significant jump in bat speed during spring training would help Volpe breakout in his third big league season. The bat speed improvements stuck in the regular season, resulting in career bests in average exit velocity, maxEV, Barrel%, ISO, and SLG. Unfortunately, his BABIP fell back to where it was during his rookie campaign and his plate discipline didn’t improve. His overall wOBA actually fell a point from where it was in 2024, and to make matters worse, his defense absolutely cratered as well.
8. Maikel Garcia is a top-15 2B (by P/G among batters w/ 300+ PA) ✅ 2025 P/G: 5.4 (4th among 2B)
A breakout! Garcia significantly improved his plate discipline last year and his batted ball peripherals painted a much better picture than the .270 wOBA he posted in 2024. I predicted that he’d see a rebound with his batted ball luck to push his wOBA back up to around .300. I didn’t expect him to significantly improve his plate discipline again and start hitting for power by getting the ball off the ground more often. The result was a .347 wOBA, easily the best of his career, and a massive breakout season. What makes Garcia even more valuable is his position flexibility: he’s eligible at four different positions and everything about his improvements this year look sustainable into the future.
9. Miguel Vargas scores the most total points among White Sox hitters ✅ 2025 Total Points: 609 (1st on White Sox)
All Vargas needed was an opportunity for full-time at-bats. The White Sox obliged and he delivered a solid, if up-and-down, season in 2025. He had a huge slump during the three weeks before the All-Star break, and two minor IL stints derailed the second half of his season, but he wound up with a .314 wOBA at the end of it all. That was good enough to eke out Lenyn Sosa for the team lead in total points. His excellent plate discipline metrics and solid batted ball peripherals give him a bit of room to grow as he continues to develop in the big leagues.
10. Neither Roman Anthony (❌) or Kristian Campbell (✅) will be starting-caliber options at their respective positions in 2025 Anthony 2025 P/G: 6.1 (10th among OF) Campbell 2025 P/G: 3.6 (37th among 2B)
I’m giving myself half credit for this one. Campbell made the Red Sox’s Opening Day roster but really struggled in his first taste of the big leagues and found himself optioned back to Triple-A by mid-June. His huge minor league breakout in 2024 was impressive, but it came in just his second professional season. The jump from the high minors to the big leagues is extremely difficult; Campbell had just 85 plate appearances in Triple-A and 255 in Double-A before making his major league debut. The talent is undeniably there, but I think Boston rushed him to the big leagues.
As for Anthony, his talent and track record were a little more well established, but I didn’t think he’d find enough playing time to make an impact in the big leagues in 2025. The Rafael Devers trade opened up an opportunity for Anthony and he ran with it. He only accumulated 303 plate appearances in the big leagues but he absolutely made the most of them.
Now that the 2025 regular season is in the books, it’s time to review my preseason posts! Let’s start with the fan favorite, the 2025 Bold Predictions. This is always a fun one to put together and every time there’s a breakout I feel like I should have seen coming, I always feel regret if that player failed to make it into this article. Let’s see who did make it, because I surely don’t remember!
