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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After completely missing the point that these bold predictions — published on Rotographs, after all — should be fantasy related the first few years, I think I’m going to actually make the leap and, you know, do my job correctly.

With that said, here are my 10 hot ta Bold Predictions for the upcoming season:

1. Kyle Gibson is no worse than the second-most valuable Twins starter in fantasy this year.

With Phil Hughes, Ervin Santana and even Ricky Nolasco in-house, I think this qualifies as bold. Through just over 230 big league innings, Gibson holds a 4.92 ERA, 5.3 K/9 and is a game under .500 at 15-16 record-wise. Still, when digging into his PITCHf/x, I found his slider picked up considerable steam in terms of results (.846 OPS in 2013; .517 in 2014) and it can’t be chalked up to any discernible usage difference. In fact, he threw it more often in 2014. Add to that an emerging changeup that’ll probably play up with the tutelage of former Rays minor league pitching coach Neil Allen on his side, and I think Gibson has some sleeper potential. The bowling ball sinker (54.4% GB rate last year) will always be there, but health and better stuff seem to be coming down the line. I’m buying Gibson this year. Read the rest of this entry »

Another year, another set of bold predictions to nail down. If you’d like to check out some of my past predictions, here are 2013’s along with the review and here are 2014’s predictions and the subsequent review.

As usual, firing squad please report directly to the comments section.

Here goes nothing:

1. Drew Pomeranz and Jesse Hahn will be top 75 starters
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Writing on Friday is tough for Bold Predictions as my RotoGraphs colleagues gradually picked off many of my predictions one by one through the week. Don’t feel too bad for me, I still found plenty that will probably come back to haunt me in a few months (or sooner!).

1. Jorge Soler will hit at least 33 home runs

Going with 30 home runs didn’t feel quite bold enough since Steamer pegs Soler for 24 and the Fans call for 26. So… 33 home runs! I think he compares especially well to Justin Upton, whose 70-pick premium over Soler in NFBC ADP feels quite steep. Check out his ISO numbers last season for a hint at his power upside: .446 in Double-A, .336 in Triple-A and .281 in the majors.

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Are you Bold Prediction’d out yet? Of course you’re not! As the proud founder of the Bold Prediction series, it is my pleasure to now present to you 10 events that will occur this upcoming season. My crystal ball reading skills regressed last year, as I declined from hitting .300 to just .200, but a full off-season working with Miss Cleo should get me back on track.

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It’s time for bold predictions again. Check out the Bold Predictions tab to see the rest of the staff go loony. I was told I wasn’t specific enough or bold enough last year (when I went four for ten, a Williams-esque personal best), so this year’s bold predictions are all specific predictions about specific players!

Enjoy!

1) Anthony DeSclafani will have a season that trumps his minor league strikeout numbers.
He’s secured a rotation spot, and that was step one. With Jason Marquis in the rotation, it’s also safe to say he’s not the number five guy that gets bounced when Homer Bailey is back. The team traded for him, and need him as a starter, so they believe he’s more than a one-pitch pitcher with command, a moniker that’s been hung on him by smarter men then me. But what I see is enough gas (92.5, or a mph more than your average righty), command (2.0 walks per nine in the minors), and arsenal to be a really good pitcher.

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The Rotographs bold predictions are flying off the shelves! And I’m the only one arrogant enough to believe he needs two separate pieces for his. Yesterday I brought you my hitting picks and today come the pitchers. Unfortunately I’ve already lost one that I was really excited about, but I still have five for you:

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According to my mother, I’m the most stubborn person on the planet. I’ll live up to that reputation today by sticking with a theme I’ve used for my bold predictions post the last two seasons. I’ll go position-by-position through the hitters and address a player who is outside starter territory in 12-team mixed leagues that I think might be able to give you starter-level production.

Two years ago that theme didn’t sit well with commenters as looking at players with an ADP outside of starter territory apparently didn’t live up the the bold moniker. To avoid that criticism I’ll only be discussing hitters that have not been ranked as a starter at their position by any of the 43 experts contributing to FantasyPros.com’s Expert Consensus Rankings.

For starting pitchers I’ll just be naming several players that I have ranked higher than everyone else or higher than almost everyone else.

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As if finding ten things to predict boldly weren’t challenging enough, I added one more layer this year. All my Bold Predictions will be about players whose first name starts with B or last name starts with P. In fact, we are going one step further – all the B names are Brandon.

Why, you ask? Why not, I answer.

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