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
Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.
Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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…

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

I never enjoy this. Every March, we make our Ten Bold Predictions and when predictions are bold, the process of analyzing the results tends to be rather humbling.

But not this year. Well, not really, anyway. I knew I had some stinkers in there (wait’ll you see #10), but I also knew I made some strong bets. And I thought maybe – just maybe – I could make a run at .500. We’ll have to see.

Read the rest of this entry »

Another regular season of baseball has been completed and it has been a disappointing one for my fantasy teams. But that doesn’t mean that everything went wrong. So let’s take a look at what I boldly predicted in March and find out how well my crystal ball was working. For a refresher, these were my original 10 predictions with explanations. For the last two seasons, I have hit on three of my 10 predictions, so the hope is that at some point I’ll nail four of them. Perhaps this will be the year.

Read the rest of this entry »