Chad Young’s Ten Bold Predictions Revisited

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.

1. Matt Dominguez will be a viable starting 3B. In short, no. No he won’t. I play in a 20-team league with 45 man rosters and I am not even sure he was useful in the CI slot, let alone 3B. In a 20-teamer. In that league (5×5 with OBP instead of average), he was the 40th ranked 3B eligible player. Even when you remove players who would not be used at 3B, he ranked 23rd. Not good. I based my Dominguez love on a .260/.323/.430 second half with a 25 HR pace. His final line: .215/.256/.330 and 16 HR. Not pretty. 0-1

2. Hanley Ramirez will emerge as the most valuable player in fantasy. Getting stuck just over 500 PA didn’t help, but Ramirez was not the Ramirez we’ve come to expect. His .283/.369/.448 line was still very good for a SS, but 13 HR and 14 stolen bases isn’t enough to truly be an elite player. I said it would be crazy to let him slip until the end of the first round, but he didn’t even crack the top 100 in overall value. Even with a positional adjustment, he was far from a first rounder. 0-2.

3. Danny Salazar will be at best the third most valuable Indians pitcher. The Indians rotation was a bit crazy for fantasy purposes this year. Corey Kluber was special (like top-5 fantasy SP special), but after that? Yuck. Justin Masterson was a debacle. The second most starts went to Trevor Bauer. TJ House had the 5th most starts. Salazar and Carlos Carrasco were terrible to star the year, lose their jobs, and then bounced back. I expected Masterson and Kluber to be better than Salazar, and thought Bauer or Carrasco could sneak by him, as well. Well, I was wrong on Masterson, but the Indians SP ranked in the following order: Kluber, Carrasco, (big gap), Salazar, Bauer. Bauer and Salazar finished almost neck and neck. But despite the odd season, this is a win – Salazar was the #3 Indians SP in fantasy. 1-2.

4. Chris Tillman will prove to be a draft day steal (but not in most ottoneu leagues). Like Dominguez, I saw a solid second half and hoped for good things from Tillman, suggesting that his 3.42 ERA and 8.5 K/9 would prove to be a valuable asset, while his HR/9 would kill him in ottoneu points and 4×4 leagues. Well, he beat the ERA (3.34) but the K were way down (6.51). I am calling this a win – he came off the board around 50th among SP and his final ranking is a tick above that. In addition, when you consider how many pitchers were taken earlier and finished lower, he proved to be a solid value. I’ll understand if you disagree, though. 2-2.

5. Platooning Adam Lind and Justin Morneau will give you a viable starting 1B. Morneau alone finished in the top 10 among guys who you would actually use at 1B. Platooning him with Lind would have only helped. Easy win, even if on the strength of only one of the two. 3-2.

6. Brad Miller will be a top 12 SS. I may make this prediction again next year, after Miller bounced back late, but this was a disaster in 2014. He wasn’t top 12, top 20 or even top 30. Ugly. 3-3.

7. James Paxton will out earn Taijuan Walker. Paxton suffered an early injury that limited his time, and I was really counting on his extra innings over Walker (who was hurt at the time) to carry him. But I also noted that Paxton would likely match Walker’s rates. Paxton’s line: 74 IP, 2.92 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 59 K, 6 W. I would have expected more K, but not a ton. Walker’s line: 38 IP, 2.61 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, 34 K, 2 W. Basically, I would have doubled both of their innings in my projections, and never would have guessed either would post such a low ERA (though Walker’s is improved by his time as a RP), but otherwise – spot on. 4-3.

8. Allen Craig will double up and hit 26 HR. He only got 501 PA, and if he had played a full season of 600, he would have still be way, way short of this. In fact, if he had put up 1500 PA, he still would have been short, on the pace he was on. Craig hit all of 8 HR. He had a lot of other issues this year, and basically became fantasy dead weight. 4-4.

9. Catcher will be so deep that you won’t care who your catcher is. I added the caveat that Buster Posey, Joe Mauer, and Carlos Santana might stand above the rest, but that the depth from ~5-15 or deeper would make it easy for any team to fill that slot with a solid player. I still think this is true. Lucroy, not Mauer, was the other standout with Posey and Santana, but after that – Devin Mesoraco, Yan Gomes, Brian McCann, Salvador Perez, Russell Martin, Dioner Navarro, Evan Gattis, Joe Mauer, Derek Norris, Wilin Rosario, Miguel Montero, Mike Zunino,
and others were all usable at different times and for different reasons. Plenty of options for one catcher leagues. 5-4.

10. Tanner Scheppers will lead the Rangers in saves. Scheppers threw only 23 innings. His ERA was 9.00. And his FIP, while better, was 6.74. He had 0 saves. None. Zilch. He did have one loss, so at least there is that. 5-5.

All in all, not too bad.