Another season, another look back at my ineptitude at going BOLD.

1. Miguel Cabrera will not be one of the top two fantasy players.

Miguel Cabrera was the consensus #2 player ranked coming into the season. I saw his health being a concern and someone would leap over him. Not just one player did better, it was 12 plus Trout. Even his teammate Victor Martinez did better.

1 for 1 (considering stopping now)

2. Billy Hamilton will have more stolen bases than base hits.

56 SB vs 141 hits.

I did not think he could hit good enough to be an everyday player. In the first half, he proved me wrong by hitting: .285/.319/.423. In the second half, it was only .200/.254/.257. Even more interesting to me was his .304 BABIP on the season. With his speed, he should be able to bunt and get on more than 30% of the time.

1 for 2

3. Dean Anna will produce more than Derek Jeter and Brian Roberts. Read the rest of this entry »

The end of the 2014 fantasy baseball season is here. Now it’s time to look back at the bold-ish predictions I made in March to see how I did:

10. Khris Davis will hit 25 homers and steal 15 bases.

In his first full season in the league, Davis triple slashed .244/.299/.457 with 22 homers and four stolen bases. While the power projection was within striking distance, the speed projection was way off. Looking back, I put too much value into Davis’ ability to swipe bases during his time Single-A and Advanced-A. Despite missing out in the prediction, I do like the player and will likely have a bunch of shares in 2015.

0-for-1
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The word “bold” here reminds me of the interpretation for MVP. Where is the perfect bold line between too cautious and sheer lunacy? Clearly I tend to lean more towards lunacy as once again my predictions were way off. Sigh, oh well. In order to avoid any interpretation issues, I’ll be using Baseball Monster for comparison and ranking related predictions. My league settings will be Yahoo! with LF/CF/RF designations rather than the generic OF.

1. Drew Smyly will be more valuable than Doug Fister
Nope! Smyly is great against lefties, but right-handed hitters torch him. Even with his platoon struggles, Smyly posted a very useful 3.24 ERA in 153 innings pitched. Fister countered with an even better 2.41 ERA in 164 IP. Smyly did have more strikeouts, 133 to 98 and a better FIP/xFIP, but Fister’s 16 wins carried the day. 0-1
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Allow me to begin my 10 Bold Predictions Revisited with a bold statement. RotoGraphs bossman Eno Sarris must love embarrassing his employees*. The concept of the 10 Bold Predictions articles are great, as they allow us to talk about players we are more passionate about heading into the year, and give us an opportunity to go deeper than the standard league articles might allow.

The downside, of course, is that we have to revisit these predictions after the season. Making bold predictions is one thing, looking back on how terrible you are is another. And so, with another year behind us, let’s look at how misguided my thoughts were coming into the year.

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Yesterday, I reviewed my 2014 bold hitting league leaders, so today it’s time to take a gander at the pitching side of those predictions. Since debuting the pitcher league leaders back in 2012, I did get one correct that year, but followed up that performance with an 0-fer. Let’s find out if I could add another tick in the win box this time around.

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Looking back on this column is like reviewing a high school yearbook photo from freshman year: the pimples can’t be Photoshopped away, the hair style screams what was he thinking?? and in hindsight, it’s no mystery that none of the girls wanted to date me. In a way, it’s fitting that this piece is being published on the same week of Yom Kippur; just as the holiest day on the Jewish calendar implores Jews worldwide to atone for their sins, so must I answer for some of these predictions.
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Aside from inspiring the annual bold predictions, I also go out on a further limb by boldly predicting each league’s leaders in the standard five fantasy categories. These predictions are obviously a lot more difficult to get correct, so even just one right is quite an accomplishment. I also rule out a lot of players that I personally don’t consider all that bold, making it a real challenge. I whiffed on all my picks back in 2012, but did manage to bat .100 last year. Let’s see if I failed just a bit less so this time around. And of course, refresh your memory with full explanations back in the original post.

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It was a decent season. Won 25% of my leagues. Placed in the top third in 58%, bottom third in 17%. When you’ve got 12 leagues, mostly with sharps, it’s tough to expect much more than this, but I do. Especially since all my pitching staffs were so good. Gotta be better with hitting.

And you’ll see that I might have gotten over-exuberant with my hitting predictions. With the run environment tanking every year, maybe it’s all about safe plays (if they exist) in the lineup. Which is tough on me because I love upside.

So let’s look at the tale of the tape. How did I do on my bold predictions? I have a feeling I’m going to get a sixer of good adult soda from Jay Long of Razzball…

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The 2014 season was my first here at RotoGraphs, and I’ve enjoyed it thoroughly. As for today, this column is helping distract me from the fact that Jeff Beliveau’s seventh-inning meltdown yesterday cost me a considerable sum in a deep roto league, coughing up my razor-thin leads in both ERA and WHIP, sending my team tumbling down two spots on the final day of the season. Fantasy sports are a fickle mistress.

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Woof! That’s all there is to say about my preseason bold predictions as a whole. The idea was to take players at each position that I had ranked just outside starter territory in 12-team leagues who I thought could beat my ranking. Let’s break them down one by one.

Catcher – Josmil Pinto will be a top ten fantasy catcher.

The biggest problem with my Pinto projection was that I projected him for 450 PA. Pinto didn’t come close to that, finishing with just 194 PA because the Twins gave Kurt Suzuki 502 PA. The one thing my projection did get right was Pinto’s power as he hit 12 home runs in limited work. Had he maintained that pace and received the 450 PA I projected, he would have hit 16 home runs, which would have easily surpassed the 12 I projected. Pinto’s power would make him interesting if he could get regular playing time, but Suzuki is signed through 2016 in Minnesota. Read the rest of this entry »