Well, the 2013 fantasy baseball season has come to an end. I’ve raised a few flags (hope you did, too!), but now it’s time to go back to my preseason “bold predictions” and put my money where my mouth is (or was?).
Let’s see how I did:
10. Despite injury, Adam Eaton will still steal 40+ bases.
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I love making outlandish predictions so much that I didn’t just stop at the standard 10 bold ones. I even stuck my neck out and risked looking foolish by forecasting the league leaders in the five standard rotisserie categories. I made sure not to choose anyone too obvious and maintained the same level of boldness. Unfortunately, this is much tougher than the regular bold predictions and my results in past years have unsurprisingly been poor. Let’s see if my crystal ball worked any better this season.
This one is going to hurt. For reasons I can’t explain at this time, I decided to write a 10 Bold Predictions article this season. I tried to convince myself it would be the easiest place for readers to see which players I was high on entering the season, and what players I thought could have value later in the year. I didn’t want to play it safe, and feel my initial predictions were bold enough. I did not expect to hit many of them, but hoped that I would at least be close enough on a few that readers would be happy if they selected players I highlighted. Boy, I was wrong.
Another season is in the books and once again it is time to go back and revisit my pre-season 10 bold predictions for the fantasy year. Last year I tried to give myself credit for as many as four of my predictions, but that was a bit of a stretch.
This year, things look a bit better.
We’re recapping all the predictions we did make, but there’s a whole slew of crazy things that none of us predicted. So let’s see if we can learn something from the crazy things that none of us saw coming, even though we tried to be strange.
Though we haven’t fully closed the books on the 2013 regular season, the vast majority of fantasy leagues have concluded. It was an interesting season for me. I finished no worse than fourth in any of my four leagues, but I wasn’t able to bring home a championship this year. That needs to change in 2014.
More importantly, though, it’s time to reflect on my preseason bold predictions. Let’s see where I pointed fantasy owners in the right direction and where I erred:
A season in the books! Not a bad one for me, two wins, five podiums, four bottom-half finishes… if only my AL-LABR team (11th) hadn’t stung so bad.
In any case, we made some bold predictions in the pre-season and it’s time to see how badly we whiffed. Although, I do remember phrasing one fairly vaguely to try and guarantee at least one ‘hit’ in the bunch. That’s cheating, I’ll readily admit. But I didn’t want to go oh-fer.
So, let’s look back at my ten then.
Phew! The season has officially ended! Well…almost. For many owners, tonight’s one-game tiebreaker will not count toward the standings. For others, it’s one last night of nail biting as you hope your lead holds up. Even though the regular season technically hasn’t ended just yet, I’ll be starting the recapping efforts. As usual, I provided 10 bold predictions in late March. Let’s see how I did.
1. Justin Ruggiano surprises everyone, except for myself and FanGraphs readers, by going 25/25
My favorite offensive sleeper this preseason finished the year with 18 home runs and 15 steals over 468 plate appearances. Although he eventually did wrangle the starting center field job away from Chris Coghlan early in the season, he was cursed by a low BABIP and gave way to prospects Jake Marisnick and Marcell Ozuna later. Extrapolating his numbers over a full season of 600 plate appearances would have still yielded results that fell a bit short of this bold prediction, but he did prove that his surprising 2012 wasn’t a complete fluke. 0 for 1
It is often said that closers are made, not born. Any experienced baseball fan knows this; it seems that for every Huston Street type who arrives with hype, four or five Jason Grillis, Andrew Baileys, or John Axfords slip into dominance after finding dead-ends in other roles. As such, predicting who will ascend to MLB closer roles (beyond the obvious “the best MLB non-closer relief pitchers”) is often a fool’s errand.
This becomes even more difficult when one attempts to find future closers in the minor leagues. Many of the pitchers who end up closing MLB games were starters all through their minor league careers, but it’s tough to project a minor league starter as a closer outright–in doing so, one is essentially saying “This pitcher will fail badly at the role he’s currently in and subsequently find tremendous success in a role he’s never pitched in.” Certainly plausible, but not something that seems like it can be said with much confidence. And minor league relievers–well, they’re equally problematic to forecast. After all, if a pitcher has a big future, why isn’t he able to crack a minor league rotation?
It’s certainly possible to envision any number of minor leaguers closing out ballgames–as so many sabermetricians are fond of saying, the role of garnering save totals can be accomplished reasonably effectively by any number of players, and the minor leagues have no shortage of interesting power pitchers that could fit a closer profile if things go their way. However, it’s quite another thing to actually predict that a minor league pitcher will end up amassing saves in the big leagues.
I think White Sox pitching prospect Daniel Webb merits such a prediction, though.
Like some of the other newer writers here at RotoGraphs, this is my first entry in the Bold Predictions.
Here’s to hoping .300 is still good enough for the Hall of Fame.
Feast up commenters!
10. Despite injury, Adam Eaton will still steal 40+ bases.
Not exactly BOLD, I know. Trying to ease y’all into this. But if Eaton returns by mid-May or earlier as advertised, he’ll still have enough time to wreak havoc on the basepaths.
9. Andrelton Simmons will score 80 runs, swipe 25 bags.
The Braves shortstop is more known for his leather, but with a full-season leading off in front of Heyward and the Upton brothers, Simmons should really flourish. In addition to the 80 runs and 25 swipes, Simmons could chip in a .275 or better batting average, giving those a nice return who selected him in the late-rounds of their fantasy drafts.