The 2019 MLB regular season has concluded. Two Astros may very well finish 1-2 in the AL Cy Young award. The Brewers went on an unbelievable Yelich-less run to make the playoffs – only to be eliminated in the wildcard game with their best pitcher on the mound. A new record was set for rookie homeruns in a single season. The Yankees hit 306 HRs as a team, and yet that did not set a record; the Twins hit 307! Baseball set a new collective HR record. It was the year of the longball, or as Jeff Zimmerman calls it, “Happy Fun Ball.”

It is now time to check back on how we fared this year in fantasy. Let’s start with a review of this season’s bold predictions.

As I often remind my readers – we will never succeed in getting the entirety of our bold predictions correct, or even realize a majority of them. If I wanted to achieve a high success rate, I could simply have filled up my list of predictions with easy ones such as “Justin Verlander will win 10+ games this season.” That class of prediction would have been too easy.

Rather, the point of the exercise is to highlight certain undervalued (or overvalued) players by choosing a few unlikely, yet achievable outcomes. The idea is to target somewhere between the 70^th and 90^th percentiles of possible outcomes – predictions which are 10-30% likely to occur.

I often use the ATC Projections as a guide for these bold predictions. I look at where the ATC projections generate an outcome which varies significantly from what the general public perceives will happen. Some other times – I just go with my gut and with my own intuition.

Let’s recap!

#1: Matt Barnes will finish as a top 5 saves leader in 2019

There are two elements that need to occur for a relief pitcher to accumulate saves. The pitcher needs to:

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I continue my review of my pre-season predictions, moving along to my bold pitcher league leaders. While the randomness of many of these metrics make it extremely difficult to get a call right, it also means that I have a much better chance of hitting on one than I did with the hitters. That’s because Dee Gordon has essentially a 0% chance of leading the league in homers, but with some good fortune, it’s in the realm of possibility that Steven Matz wins the NL ERA title. I did not boldly predict a wins league leader, because wins are dumb.

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Let’s check in on my bold league leader predictions. While I rarely get any of these right, the hope is that some of the highlighted names outperformed and their appearance on this list gave you the nudge you needed to go the extra buck for them. We’ll start with the hitters.

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Now that the regular season has ended, it’s time to review alllllll my pre-season calls. I’ll start with the granddaddy of posts, one that all RotoGraphs writers partake in — bold predictions. I won’t fully rehash my prediction explanations here, so refresh your memory from my original post. As usual, the hope is to get three of the 10 correct. Let’s see how I did.

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Let’s finish what we started yesterday and look at some hitters. We’ll assume that, like us, you’re the brawny, rugged type who likes two-catcher leagues rather than the effete sort who prefers the monocatcher variety. If so, you’re always looking for a catcher who will be an improvement on a dead roster spot, and—unless your league somehow factors defense in—what with injuries, there aren’t enough of those to go around. Thus, our next two Bold Predictees. First, and more obviously, there’s Kevan Smith. He’s spent about four weeks this season dealing first with a possible concussion and then with a sprained metacarpal, but when he’s been healthy—for about 100 plate appearances–he’s done exactly what we, you, and everyone else expected, which is a .286 batting average, high on-base percentage, little power, no speed, and a slightly higher runs-plus-rbis per at-bat than is the norm for catchers. In other words, he’s worth something, and because he’s freshly off the DL and nobody carries more catchers than absolutely necessary, he’s freely available. Read the rest of this entry »

Where would those of us who are passionate about full-season Fantasy Baseball be without the counsel of America’s Leading Fantasy Sports Aggregator to guide us? Our hearts accordingly leapt up when we beheld in our In Box last week ALFSA’s “Ten Bold Second Half Predictions.” And about whom were these predictions predicted? Here’s the full list: Matt Olson, Christian Yelich, Justin Smoak, Pete Alonso, Kenta Maeda, J.D. Martinez, Brandon Woodruff, Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Eloy Jimenez.

Thanks, podnuh; we’ll rush right out and grab all those guys. Look—as we see it, a Bold Prediction must also be a Useful Prediction, and for anyone in a redraft league, a Useful Prediction is one involving a player who might actually be available. With this in mind, we present our own Bold Second Half Predictions, confident that most if not all these guys will be available for cheap in most if not all leagues. Five pitchers today, then five hitters tomorrow: Read the rest of this entry »

If March is bold prediction season and October is bold prediction review season, then somewhere in between is bold prediction check-in season.

As always: you don’t care about this introduction, just the midway results. But, also, as always: I try to use bold predictions as an exercise in using hard data (and a little bit of blind faith) to make actionable recommendations for leveraging market inefficiencies to your advantage. While it’s fun to predict Christian Yelich might hit 60 home runs (he might!!!), it doesn’t change your opinion about him very much, whereas a bold prediction about, say, my little king Jeff McNeil might have encouraged you to draft him ahead of his lowly average draft position (ADP) of 298th overall (34th among second basemen), per National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC).

Unlike past seasons, I actually remember some of the bold predictions I made, which makes me excited to review them. At the end of each prediction, I’ll assess the percentage probability of it hitting come October. Let’s dig in.

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Opening day is finally here!

Draft season is now ending. It is time for our fantasy teams to finally start accumulating statistics (Japan series aside). After the long winter, the excitement of a new season has finally reached its pinnacle.

Now it is time to share my 2019 bold predictions with you. The ATC Projections helped shape some of these. Others come from my own personal analysis on the player, or team situation. The rest arise from blind optimism or the crossing of my fingers. These are all possibilities that could happen, that I feel will happen if things break just right.

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Yesterday, I unveiled my bold hitter league leaders, of which I expect to go 10 for 10. The pitching side of the ledger is a bit easier. Given that there is both more luck and factors outside the specific pitcher’s control that shapes his surface results, it’s more conceivable that a non-favorite leads the league in a category.

In an effort to avoid double dipping and naming the same pitcher in two categories, there may have been a slightly better bold choice for a particular stat. Also keep in mind that it is challenging to balance boldness with realistic, considering this requires me to bet against a group of names in which it’s like a 95% lock that one of them wins the category. I eliminated many names that I didn’t think were bold, but maybe you do. I also eliminated names that have no real chance at leading in the category. I decided against a bold wins league leader, because wins are silly and unpredictable. I also deleted my strikeout league leader, because it would seem just about impossible for any non-top projected guy to lead the league.

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Every season, in addition to posting my standard bold predictions, I up the ante with my bold league leaders. If you thought nailing a bold prediction was tough, the bold league leaders are even more difficult! Just getting one right is worthy of celebration. Because these are bold, I automatically disqualify players I don’t personally believe would be considered bold or is projected to finish top five in the category. So I challenge myself and it typically causes me to bat .000. This is more for fun and dreaming of what could be than any serious attempt at being right.

We’ll start with the hitting league leaders in each of the five categories, split up by league.

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