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.

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3/28/16

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

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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)

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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).

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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…).

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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.

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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.

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There is a time and place to be bold. Perhaps that time is now and that place is here. Perhaps not. It’s also said the meek shall inherit the earth. I’ve always taken that to mean you should hide in a bomb shelter during a nuclear holocaust rather than fighting and looting in the streets. It may also mean your best chance to win your fantasy league is to take no chances.

What follows are my 10 timid predictions for the 2016 season.

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I love Bold Prediction season here at FanGraphs. Everyday I am hit with dozens of interesting, exciting and unique predictions, almost all of which will be wrong, but almost all of which will contain a nugget of truth that will make me a smarter fantasy player. Plus, I get to make crazy predictions!

But in looking back, I realized I have a tendency to be overly positive. In four years doing Bold Predictions, I have put out 33 positive posits and only seven negative notions. This year, we restore balance! One other change this year – I have been tracking the Bold Predictions of my fellow Rotographers, and any player I am predicting that they already predicted, I will be bolder.

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“Be bloody, bold, and resolute.” The approach didn’t work out for Macbeth, but these are nonetheless words to live by for the Birchwood Brothers. As we’ve often mentioned, we’re no better than Joe Fan at predicting the value of upper- and mid-tier players. We like Kole Calhoun, for example, but we have no idea whether he’s worth $15, $20, or somewhere in between. We leave the task of determining that to our Fangraphs colleagues.

We nonetheless find most of said colleagues’ Bold Predictions for the season a trifle, ah, timid. And, insofar as we are vessels of enlightenment, it is because we occasionally identify cheap players who might do something compelling. Remember, we’re the guys who last year urged upon you Jose Ramirez, T.J. House, Jordan Schafer, and Todd Cunningham. We operate at the intersection of the statistical and the anecdotal, and try to separate signal and noise. So, passing lightly over the recent news that–have we got this right?–Goose Gossage is retiring in order to home-school Adam LaRoche, we offer our Genuinely Bold Predictions for 2016. And, to quote a sign we once saw in the window of a discount shop, Everything One Dollars or Fewer. Although now that we think about it, some of the stuff in that shop, though undoubtedly cheap, cost more than a dollar. So let’s start with some guys who will probably cost you only that much, but whom we regard as worth $2 if someone says $1 before you get around to it.

Two Dollar Players

1. Keone Kela will lead the Rangers in saves. Contemplating Kela and Shawn Tolleson, the incumbent closer, we are reminded a bit of the situation before last season with Luke Gregerson and Chad Qualls. Qualls was ostensibly the incumbent, but a trifle long in the tooth and coming off an unusually successful season that was going to be hard to duplicate. Meanwhile, by any conceivable metric, Gregerson was a better pitcher. And so it is with Tolleson and Kela, with the additional fillip that Tolleson has a lot of trouble staying healthy. Read the rest of this entry »

Barry Bonds leads the Marlins in home runs. OK, so this won’t happen but you so know he could.

1. Aaron Hicks finishes as a top 24 outfielder

I made my fondness of Hicks pretty apparent in a previous piece on the Yankees’ playing time battles. In limited plate appearances last season, Hicks kept some pretty impressive company combining speed, power, and plate discipline. In fact, over 600 plate appearances, his numbers pro-rated to a 17/20 season. Moving from Target Field to Yankee Stadium, a 20/20 season seems plausible.

For Hicks, it comes down to two things: playing time and improvement versus righties. Given that Jacoby Ellsbury and Carlos Beltran are the walking embodiments of a week old French loaf, the boldness in this prediction comes from betting on gains against righties. If he can do it, watch out.

Continuing with the Yankees…

2. The three most valuable position players on the Yankees at year’s end will all start the year as backups or minor leaguers

Of course for this prediction to come true, it hinges on the first. Perhaps it’s unwise to compound predictions. Perhaps I should diversify. Perhaps I’m just really excited for a Yankees youth movement. And no, I’m not a Yankees fan, apparently just an enthusiastic observer.

So obviously, I’m talking about the aforementioned Hicks. The other two missing pieces to the Morris Avenue Miracle are Greg Bird and Gary Sanchez. We saw what Bird was capable of last season when his number was called and ZiPS’ confidence in him bodes well.

Sanchez is the real stretch here but given his advanced approach at the plate and that he held his own as a 22 year old catcher in AAA, it’s not out of the realm possibility that given an opportunity, he provides above average production at a premium position. Now Top 3 on the Yankees? Look, this ain’t 2009 but this team still scored the second most runs in the AL last season. A lot has to go right for this to happen.

So, let’s say the Yankees lose Mark Teixeira for a prolonged period because, I don’t know, he hurts his wrist or he falls into a coma after watching one of his post-game interviews. Brian McCann strains a back muscle yelling at someone flipping a bat. Meanwhile, Hicks has already carved out a spot in the lineup spelling Ellsbury or Beltran and the offense teems with the Yankees’ future realized a couple years early. It could happen.

I suppose if you’re being litigious, you could argue that a breakout year by Dustin Ackley could place him in the top 3, making this prediction come true. And to that I say fine. Except that would never happen because everyone knows that the dividing line between a bold prediction and a crazy one is Dustin Ackley.

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