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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

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

Read the rest of this entry »

It brings tears to my eyes seeing the Bold Predictions series I first started here at RotoGraphs back in 2011 so enthusiastically embraced. In that first post, I actually doled out 20 boldies, giving myself double the chances to look like a fool! This year, few of my bold predictions will be a surprise, as the majority of these names have appeared in at least one of my preseason articles, signaling a clear bullish or bearish stance.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last season, my inaugural Bold Predictions didn’t click, as I went just one-for-nine — but my one was pretty impressive — and embarrassed my entire family more than usual. I have dusted myself off and am prepared to hit it out of the park this year.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last couple weeks, we’ve been releasing our bold predictions, and I noticed some patterns emerging. Before I wrote mine, I made a number of edits to my list because I didn’t want to cover the same player as my fellow Rotographs writers, unless I was going to be more bold than they were.

To facilitate that, I was tracking the other writers’ predictions. Because of that, I now have a list of the players where we overlapped – the 30 players who were the focal point of more than one bold prediction.

Read the rest of this entry »

3/28/16

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

Follow us on Twitter

• @sporer
• @enosarris
• @jasoncollette

Notable Transactions/Rumors/Articles

• Matt Harvey scratched, OD in doubt (4:00)
• Lonnie Chisenhall to DL [forearm] (6:17)
• Nate Karns & Vincent Velasquez win 5th starter roles (9:30)
• Tyler White makes Astros OD roster (17:45)

Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Disclaimer: these projections are bold (at least they’re supposed to be), and most are made in the context of Ottoneu fantasy baseball.

1) Yangervis Solarte will outscore Rougned Odor in 2016.

Rougned Odor is an extreme talent.  His breakout last year has been well documented, and his .273/.313/.520 slash all but guarantees no one is sleeping on him in drafts this year (his hot spring hasn’t done anything but boost his stock).  But for all the fanfare surrounding Odor, we should remember that his breakout was mostly ignited by an insane June that included a .390 BABIP and a BB/K rate that looks like a big outlier (1.25).  Odor’s July was equally sizzling so this isn’t an attempt to pump the brakes on a great young player except to say that he’s not coming with much of a discount in new Ottoneu auctions this season (~$20).

Looking for another under-the-radar 2B that could really turn a profit in 2016? Enter Yangervis Solarte, one of the few players to rival Odor’s 2nd half breakout and his 80 grade name.  Solarte started 2015 white-hot with a .321/.387/.500 slash and .385 wOBA, but fell off the map in May/June.  Something clicked for Solarte in July, however, as he rolled off three straight months of excellent production (wOBA’s of .353, .348, and .362 in July, August, and September), finishing the 2nd half with a .292/.336/.470 line.  That line isn’t all that unlike what Odor dazzled us with last year, and there may be room for improvement for Solarte because of his excellent contact skills and slightly better walk rates (he also hit much better at home than on the road).

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a weird week for me, delaying this article by four days. I originally intended to have this up by Monday, but a spontaneous — and completely awesome — decision to attend the NCAA Tournament provided the first delay. I got to see Oklahoma/VCU and the historically unprecedented Texas A&M win over Northern Iowa, so I didn’t feel too bad about being a day late.

Unfortunately, I got myself concussed in a fender-bender the next day (not my fault!), and spent the last few days listlessly staring out my window, the owner of a half-working brain. Hopefully, I’ve recovered enough for the following to make sense, but the fact that my 31st birthday looms this coming Monday means I’m in the midst of my annual birthday-related existential crisis, brain injury or not.

Regardless of the circumstances, it’s Bold Predictions time! I did pretty darn well two years ago, but last year my success rate was roughly equivalent to that of the Brooklyn Brawler. (Fun fact: The Brawler briefly performed in WWF as “The MVP” Abe Knuckleball Schwartz, a bad-guy persona used to rile up fans during the MLB strike of ’94.) Let’s turn the clock back to 2014 and get my boldness rate back to the sweet spot.

Here are my ten Bold Predictions for 2016, roughly arranged in ascending order from safest to craziest:

10. James Shields is not a top-65 starting pitcher, despite throwing 200+ innings for the tenth straight year.

How do we value a 34-year-old coming off a season like Shields just had? He logged over 200 innings and made his annual 33 starts, but posted his worst-ever walk rate — and it’s not even close — at 3.60 BB/9. His HR/FB ballooned to another career worst, at 17.6%. Shields also experienced career bests in two areas, strikeouts (yay!) and strand rate (hmm…).

Read the rest of this entry »

1) Travis d’Arnaud will be a top-3 catcher in all formats

This prediction relies on d’Arnaud being healthy this season, but if he is I think we could see 25 home runs with 70+ runs and RBI with a .270 average. In 268 plate appearances last season d’Arnaud had a .355 wOBA, not far behind what Kyle Schwarber did (.364 wOBA) in his 273 plate appearances.

Read the rest of this entry »

Matthew Dewoskin and I are the hosts of the Field of Streams podcast that runs here Monday through Friday at RotoGraphs during the season, but we wanted to get in on the excitement that is Bold Predictions for the first time. We went halfsies though, so you get five from each of us.

1. Matt: Bud Norris will out earn every other Braves starter.

What this pick boils down to is Bud Norris will have a better year than Julio Teheran, which isn’t nearly as farfetched as their ages and draft status make it seem.

Norris has spent the majority of his career pitching for the Astros in full rebuild-mode, and the Baltimore Orioles. The same Orioles that have to face the Red Sox, Yankees, Blue Jays and Rays about 752 times every season. Norris has maintained his 93 MPH+ velocity into his early thirties, and now gets to face a pitchers’ spot and contend with the Marlins, Phillies, Mets and Nats. Norris has maintained a K/9 in the 7.5 range with a BB/9 in the 2.80-3.4 range for the past several years, while his GB% has increased every season since 2012. This adds up to a pitcher capable of posting quality numbers, but his situation had more to do with his mediocre results.

Teheran is coming off the worst season of his young career with 4.04 ERA with a 3.27 BB/9, but, more disturbingly, he’s coming off a season in which he threw his slider 23.2% of the time. On it’s own heavy slider usage isn’t necessarily a red flag, but combining his pitch mix with the drop in velocity and poor performance, it should raise a few eyebrows.

Teheran should be a stay away unless he comes at a steep discount, but Norris is worth a late round flyer for fantasy GMs looking to round out a pitching staff.

Read the rest of this entry »