You have read the rest of the staff’s bold predictions, now it’s finally time for the man who inspired them all to unveil his. Luckily, my crystal ball is the clearest it has ever been!

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I am foregoing my weekly AL starting pitcher post to hit on a more timely topic today. As you know, we have been unveiling our consensus rankings by position, and yesterday, we published the second sackers. As expected with any set of rankings from multiple people, there were many examples where our opinions diverged. Jose Altuve was one such player, so I thought it would be fitting to jump back onto the Pod hitter projections train and analyze my projection and how I got to that number nine ranking. In addition, if I find my ranking of a player is far off from the consensus, I then go back to my own projection to make sure I wasn’t unreasonably optimistic or pessimistic.

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Eno Sarris just published the Rotographs 2012 composite rankings for 2B. I will be concentrating on covering 2B for this upcoming season. Besides over analyzing 2B, I will contributing to the composite rankings. Today, I am going to go over some of my thoughts on the initial rankings and then give an overview of how I ranked the players.

2B Rankings

-The four of us are in general agreement over the first 6 picks with not one ranking really diverging. The first disagreement happens at the 7th and 8th spot where Eno likes Rickie Weeks more than the rest of us and he is not fond of Howie Kendrick.

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Last week, I determine who the most overvalued pitchers were based on my projections and dollar values in comparison to their average draft positions on Mock Draft Central. Today I check in on the other side of the coin. Pitcher projections and rankings always have the most disagreement, so it is always interesting to see where my opinion diverges from the mock drafters and the various projection systems. I decided to include the 5 most undervalued pitchers that are still worth drafting (expected to generate a positive value) in a standard 12-team mixed league and projected to be worth more than just a couple of bucks. I also excluded the reliever turned starter group since I’ve talked enough about them and they aren’t 100% locks for a spot anyway.

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Last Wednesday, I look at the most overvalued hitters at every position (sans catcher), comparing the positional rankings inferred from the ADPs at Mock Draft Central to my dollar values. Avoiding the players that are unlikely to earn their draft slot or auction price is important, but winners also usually end up with a chock full of players that were undervalued as well. Last time, I looked at the top 10 at each infield position and the top 24 outfielders. This time I will look at every starter expected to generate positive value in a standard, 12-team league.

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1. Cliff Pennington will be a top-five AL SS.

Pennington was a line drive machine last season, finishing sixth among all qualified hitters in both leagues with a 24.8 percent rate. The season before, Pennington still checked in at a solid 21.5 percent, which would suggest ‘11 wasn’t a total aberration. Thus, coinciding with his excellent plate discipline in the minors (nearly 1:1 K/BB rate), Pennington would seem to have a solid chance to improve quite a bit on his .302 wOBA in ‘11, especially if he can start using his non-line drive powers for good (as in, more grounders). Read the rest of this entry »

These aren’t so much predictions as foretellings. I’m not guessing here, I’m cluing you in on what’s to come for the immediate future. Ignore these warnings at your own peril!

1. Josh Johnson will make fewer starts than Johan Santana

There’s a temptation to put Johnson in a category with Adam Wainwright as guys who missed a lot of last season, but shoulder injuries tend to be far more insidious than elbow injuries do. Just ask Chien-Ming Wang. Santana’s on an upward trend, but I fear Johnson won’t be nearly so lucky in 2012. Read the rest of this entry »

So we’ve decided to turn this 10 Bold Predictions thing into a friendly competition amongst the RotoGraphs writers. Here are mine… Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I looked at the most overvalued hitters at every position (sans catcher), comparing my dollar values to the player’s ADP within his position. Today comes the more enjoyable part for me, the pitchers. This is where the most disagreement always lies. If you looked at my LABR team, you can quickly see how my opinions may not match up with many other fantasy owners’ opinions on the pitching side of the ledger! I decided to look at the 5 most overvalued starters of the top 24 starters being drafted, since that would equate to the top 2 starters per team in a 12-team league. In order from most overvalued to fifth most overvalued…

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With a complete set of dollar values finally in hand after finishing the LABR draft this past Saturday, I can now take a definitive look at who I find to be overvalued and undervalued versus their Mock Draft Central ADPs. In earlier posts of this nature, it was just guesswork. Now I can compare where I have a player ranked within a position to where he is being drafted among the others at that position. Today I will look at the most overvalued hitters at each position, but will only consider those in the top 10 in the infield, and the top 20 in the outfield.

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