Life isn’t all about rainbows and butterflies. With that in mind, my bold predictions include some positive outlooks for a pair of post-hype sleepers, some young hurlers, a sophomore everyone is in love with and a veteran second baseman. However, they also feature some less than rosy prognostications for a speedy second baseman, a late-blooming multi-position eligible Pirate and a pitcher trading homer-friendly Great American Ballpark for the homer-suppressing Marlins Park. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s my favorite time of the year here at RotoGraphs, the season of bold predictions. (My least favorite time, naturally, is late September, when I have to atone for these forecasts.) As usual, the trick here is to balance imagination against reality, the impossible versus the attainable, the speculative against the demonstrable. It’s a tough task that, for me, often results in happy predictions, but then again, it’s March — ’tis the season to indulge in some fantasy baseball fantasies, right?
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Yesterday, I took our bold predictions one step further by unveiling my bold hitter league leaders. It’s not easy picking a league leader that could both be considered bold, and yet still not outrageous. Today I turn to pitchers, who with two ratio categories, are perhaps a bit easier.

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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. But, at the very least, might push you to go the extra buck on these players, which, after all, is what these bold predictions are all about.

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

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Last year was my first foray into bold predictions, and despite my low rate of actual success, several of my predictions produced some positive fantasy advice. The latter is really the more important rubric, but for vanity’s sake, this year I strive for two actual successes.

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I went 3-for-10 on my Bold Predictions last year, which is probably right around the sweet spot. Here, you will find this year’s crop of my unlikely — yet within the realm of possibility — predictions. These aren’t in any particular order, other than the order in which I thought of them. So, I guess they are in a particular order. They are in my chronological mind-order. Except for No. 10. I wrote that one fourth. Kind of ruins the whole theme. Oh, well.

1. Jorge Soler is a top-ten outfielder.

I’ve been crazy-high on Soler for quite a while now, so who better to lead off my Bold Predictions than the 23-year-old Cuban? Soler’s tools are out of this world, and they were on full display at every level last year, as he tore the cover off the ball, regardless of the level of competition.

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Last week we did bold predictions. As a commenter on my post pointed out, the majority of the staff’s predictions were of the positive nature. More “player x will reach or exceed y” than “player x will fail to reach y.” My predictions were ten guys who I think could give you starter-level production in 12-team mixed leagues despite not being ranked as a starter by a single expert whose rankings are compiled by FantasyPros.com.

Today I’ll do the opposite and identify at least one hitter from each position who is ranked as a starter by every FantasyPros expert that I think might not end up with starter-level production. To be clear, these predictions do not come with the claim of being bold, although I think some of them are. And I’m also not of the opinion that most of these will come true. But even if these guys don’t turn out to be busts, they are candidates to underperform and are guys I’ll likely be avoiding.

If you’d like to see my personal ranks, both overall and positional, I’ve got them in a Google doc here. Read the rest of this entry »

“Cold” because we’re late for the predictions-feast, and the earlier arrivals have eaten a lot of the tastiest victuals. If it’s a “bold” prediction, not everyone’s making it. So here and there, we, and therefore you, are stuck with leftovers. But don’t worry, because we’ve brought some delicacies of our own. Here are our top ten, in reverse order of preposterousness. A couple of them we’ve mentioned before, but Spring Training developments make them worth mentioning again. If we’re right about our two or three most outlandish picks, we’ll claim Fantasy immortality. Read the rest of this entry »

1.) Nathan Eovaldi breaks out in New York.

Moving to the AL from the NL or from Miami’s park to Yankee Stadium doesn’t often signal a breakout, but Eovaldi’s other skills could lend itself to a nice draft day bargain. Eovaldi will still only be 26 on Opening Day and while his 6 wins and 4.37 ERA last year looks unimpressive, a 3.37 FIP and 199.2 IP with a clean bill of health is certainly promising. Eovaldi possesses massive MPH (95.7 average fastball velocity last year) but light on swing and miss stuff (8.4% SwStr% below the league average of 9.4%). The 2013 version of Garrett Richards averaged 94.8 MPH with a 9.2% SwStr%. He increased his slider usage last year, bumped up the swinging strikes and had a breakout year. This is the path that Eovaldi will follow in 2015. Whether or not Eovaldi has a large increase in skill, his peripheral number’s last year suggest ERAs in the 3’s not the 4’s and if he finds a few more swings and misses, the rewards will be glorious. Wily Peralta is another pitcher with similar talents that could break out in 2015.

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1. Mike Trout or Clayton Kershaw will not be the #1 ranked fantasy player for 2015. These two are the consensus number one hitter and pitcher, but I will take the field that someone else will step up and surprise everyone.

2. Pedro Alvarez will lead the National League in home runs. He is an after thought for many owners after hitting 36 home runs in 2013. The move to first base will allow him to not worry about his 3B defense and just hit home runs.

3. Martin Prado will be more productive than Kris Bryant. I think Prado is getting way under valued with 2B, 3B, and OF eligibilities in some leagues. He has historically hit near .300 with some pop. Bryant’s spring has been inflating his value beyond where it should be. Also, he won’t be able to feast off scrub pitching and his strikeout rate may become a huge drag.

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