After reading my ten hopefully-bold-enough predictions for the upcoming season, be sure to peruse the other Bold Prediction articles that have been published this week. We can then reconvene once the regular season has ended and discuss just how foolish the majority of these predictions proved to be.

It’ll be fun. Kind of.

(1) Starlin Castro will see his batting average fall under .275.

Although I love the power/speed combination offered by Castro and he just turned 23 last weekend, I’m worried his poor plate discipline will rise up and continue to take a bite out of his batting average this season. Consider this: his O-Swing% rose to 37.4% in 2012, while his strikeout rate, swinging-strike rate and swing percentage all increased in a similar fashion for the second-consecutive season. Sure, he’s young and has ample time to develop his skills, but those peripheral numbers are not trending in the right direction. Every projection model on his FanGraphs player page has him hitting over .290. I’m not so certain we’ll see that in 2013.

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Being the team player that I am — as well as a glutton for punishment from the comments section — I am about to share with you the reasons why you’ll win your league this season. These are my highly coveted secrets of the trade. Normally a transaction of this magnitude is done in a shady alley in the dead of the night, involving non-sequential bills and lots of glances over my shoulder. I guess in theory you could be reading this in a shady alley in the dead of night, but I digress. These are my 10 bold predictions for the 2013 fantasy season.
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I’ll be honest with you friends: I don’t love my bold predictions as much as I did last year. But I did spend a lot of time researching them so I think I have at least a somewhat decent statistical backing to what I see here.

And similarly, these aren’t bets I’d take with the money straight up. If I were in Las Vegas — perish the thought — I’d take these bets if I got pretty good odds. In spots where I don’t really have a strong fantasy angle — ROTOgraphs, after all — I’ll try throw in a little somethin’ somethin’ that I might see which could help. Read the rest of this entry »

1. 70% of opening day closers won’t still have their jobs by the end of the year…

You don’t need me to tell you that closers are easily replaced, and so saying that we’ll see changes in the ninth inning isn’t really that bold. So if we’re going to make this exciting, let’s say that more than a full two-thirds of closers won’t last the season, either through injury or ineffectiveness. That may sound like a high number, but then again, remember who teams were counting on to finish games for them last April — guys like Alfredo Aceves, Javy Guerra, Jordan Walden, Brett Myers, Heath Bell, & Matt Capps. Even top-tier closers like Mariano Rivera & Brian Wilson weren’t immune, though of course for other reasons. By my count, only 10 closers made it wire-to-wire, and a few more (Carlos Marmol, Huston Street, etc) had to deal with changes at some point in the season. This really drives the point home that you can almost always find saves somewhere. The bell tolls for thee, Sergio Romo & Jim Johnson.
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My comrades have been rolling out their bold predictions all week, so now it’s my turn to keep things going. I went 2-for-10 last season, which is probably replacement level for these things. Then again, I was one stupid Scott Downs save away from going 3-for-10, and 3-for-10 sounds a whole lot better than 2-for-10. Here are this year’s predictions:

1. Bryce Harper will be a top-five fantasy player.

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Batting towards the end of the week with 10 Bold Predictions is a tough spot – I don’t want to duplicate what’s been said already, but I also don’t want to go down the depth chart to my 17th and 18th boldest predictions. It’s also my rookie season making bold predictions here, so I’m hoping I can have an impact similar to that of the first guy on my list, a repeated prediction I can’t avoid.

1) Jedd Gyorko is the real deal.
Seriously, if you have drafts remaining, go buy this guy. I’ve got shares of him everywhere. Projection systems see him as a .270-15-5 type but he’s flashed much more power at times, as well as 10-steal wheels in 2011. I’ve got Gyorko pencilled in for .275 with 20-plus home runs, and Chase Headley’s injury should give him ample time to prove he’s worth keeping at the major league level. Add in some likely position flexibility, and you’ve got a stud being selected outside of the top-200.

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Yesterday, I got outrageously bold with predictions for the league leaders in the five fantasy hitting categories. Today, I check in on the pitching side of the ledger with some equally crazy forecasts.

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After a Mendoza-like .200 average last season, I hope to improve on my predictions this season. Some are based on facts, others on my gut, all BOLD. Let your mocking begin.

Torii Hunter will improve on his 2012 season.

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Is it really that time of year again? Somebody pinch me. We are less than a week away from the 2013 MLB season’s first official game and with that, the starting gun for the fantasy baseball season will have sounded. I’ll be damned if that doesn’t give me the warm fuzzies in my belly and that tingly feeling in the nether-regions that us married guys don’t get to feel too often anymore. What? Too much information? Well look at the damn headline, people! It’s all about being bold today and while I would like to boldly predict that my wife will be so turned on by my fantasy prowess that I’ll get that tingly feeling all year long, I’ll just stick to baseball here. Here are my 10 bold predictions for the 2013 season. Read the rest of this entry »

This is my first venture into the Rotographs “Bold Predictions” series and mainly I’m just hoping a big league general manager notices my predictive prowess and I rule baseball by August 2015. I will admit, I am a bit concerned I asked my Magic 8-Ball how spot on these prophecies were and I just got an f-bomb back in return. Oh well. Go big or go home.

Clay Buchholz will be a top-25 mixed league starter.

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