Eno Sarris’ Bold Predictions for 2015

It’s time for bold predictions again. Check out the Bold Predictions tab to see the rest of the staff go loony. I was told I wasn’t specific enough or bold enough last year (when I went four for ten, a Williams-esque personal best), so this year’s bold predictions are all specific predictions about specific players!

Enjoy!

1) Anthony DeSclafani will have a season that trumps his minor league strikeout numbers.
He’s secured a rotation spot, and that was step one. With Jason Marquis in the rotation, it’s also safe to say he’s not the number five guy that gets bounced when Homer Bailey is back. The team traded for him, and need him as a starter, so they believe he’s more than a one-pitch pitcher with command, a moniker that’s been hung on him by smarter men then me. But what I see is enough gas (92.5, or a mph more than your average righty), command (2.0 walks per nine in the minors), and arsenal to be a really good pitcher.

On that arsenal. Dude threw 159 sliders last year and got nearly 20% whiffs on them, so we can call it a good pitch. So… the changeup? He got good whiffs on less than 50, but when the sample is that small, it’s better to look at the shape of the pitch. His changeup drops an inch and a half more than the average changeup, fades three inches more than the average changeup, and has about eight mph of separation on his four-seam. You’d like that last number to be ten, but it’s such a bendy pitch, and bendier than his two-seamer, that it’ll be good. He even refined it in the AFL, he told me last week, and he’s ready to throw it often. He didn’t really do that in the minors, when he only struck out 7.7 batters per nine. I’ll take eight strikeouts per nine, two-ish walks per nine, and the good ERA and WHIP that usually come with those numbers.

2) Travis Snider will be a top 60 outfielder.
Here’s a short list of players that added the most distance to their homers and fly balls last year.

More on Ozuna later. This bit is about Travis Snider, who feels like he’s been here forever, but is only 27 now. His isolated slugging last year was a career-high (.174), and if he didn’t add to that number at all, but only played more for his new team (who need at least a two-thirds starter in the corner outfield), then Snider could easily hit .260 with 16 homers.

You might expect him to regress back to career means, and hit fewer, and that’s fair. But 15 feet of extra batted ball distance is a bit of a magic number. Chad Young and Mike Podhorzer found that players that added that much distance retained much of their power gain the next year. Snider’s finally in a hitter’s park, he’s in his peak, and he put on the extra distance last year. He’s ready to be better than Marlon Byrd.

3) Jason Kipnis will go 20/20.
We know that Jason Kipnis is capable of 20 homers, because he was capable of 17 just two years ago and is 27 years old. We know that Jason Kipnis is capable of 20 steals because he’s done it three years in a row. Maybe this isn’t so bold. But! Because he was so bad last year, and projection systems weight last year heavily, and because steals fall off so quickly, Steamer has Kipnis down for a 12/20 season. So I’ll call it bold. Even if it’s backed up by Jeff Zimmerman’s research that players that play through injury find their power underprojected the next year. Supposed to be bold, not stupid.

4) Shelby Miller will Garret Richards.
I’m not even sure about this one, but the stuff is all there for Miller to do simile of the Angels youngster. Gas? Check. History of command? Check (before last year). Good breaking ball? Check (depending on which one you’re asking about). Not every pitcher needs a change. Reports are that Miller has changed his grip on the curve a bit, and that’s tightened his curve up some. If he can up the velocity on the curve just a bit, it should return to glory. With the cutter and the new two-seamer, he has the four pitches he needs to succeed, without the change.

5) All five Indians starters will be mixed-league relevant — and bargains.
I can more confidently say this now that Gavin Floyd is injured again. Because I love TJ House. He gets unfairly put into a soft-tossing lefty bucket because his organization drafted a million of those guys, but House averaged 90.7 on the fastball last year, and that’s exactly average for a lefty. Pair average velocity with exceptional command, and three good pitches, and you have everything you need. He threw plenty of sliders (22% whiffs) and changes (16%), and the sinker got ground balls. We all love Corey Kluber, most of us love Carlos Carrasco, Danny Salazar throws heat with a nasty change and a decent slider, House just got some love, and so it’s on Trevor Bauer to keep up his end of the bargain. He doesn’t actually need to improve the change — his curves, sliders, and fastballs are great — but he’s still working on it. Best thing? His command has improved every year, and that used to be the huge thing working against him.

6) Xander Bogaerts will be a top-five shortstop.
This one isn’t necessarily rooted in the numbers. Sure, his strikeout rate improved last year, and that’s a good sign, since he always improved his strikeout rate when given a second chance at a new level in the minors. And, really, his debut was pretty good for a guy his age. Look at his work in the context of players younger than 22 that debuted at shortstop in the 2000s, and he compares favorably, especially when it comes to power. But those aren’t the strongest numbers, and the rest of this is based on my eyeballs and a feeling. He looked better in the second half. He felt like he was gaining his footing as a major leaguer.

7) Marcell Ozuna will hit 30 home runs.
Check that table above. Nobody added more distance to their fly balls and homers last year than Ozuna. Dude is 24 and built like a brick poop house. Well, not like his famous teammate, but he’s toolsy. His approach at the plate isn’t great, but he doesn’t get cheated when he makes contact. And his minor league numbers suggest there’s more power growth coming, too.

8) Chase Anderson will be a top-50 pitcher.
He was so close to being top 50 in an important stat last year, we could say he’s already been top 50 in something. It’s not really that much of a leap to say that a National League pitcher that struck nearly 22% of the batters he faced (over eight per nine) and had a better-than-average walk rate (and a history of better) can be a good fantasy option. He gave up a few homers last year, and that’s been a problem from here to there in the minors, but I have hope he can fix that this year. For one, the change gave up the most homers, and he can manipulate the pitch into two versions. Mixing up those changes should help suppress homers. And the other thing? He told me he was working on his sinker, and his four-seam gave up the second-most homers among his pitches. Great change, good curve, average velocity, and good command — I want him in any league.

9) Adam Ottavino or Evan Marshall will be a top-ten closer.
I guess this is a bet against old man LaTroy Hawkins and homer machine Addison Reed. So be it. By strikeouts, walks, and ground balls, Hawkins is a bottom-five closer… since 1990. By his own admission to me, he was closing because he hit a good streak at the right time. Adam Ottavino has three sliders and a good head on his shoulders, and good strikeout, whiff, and ground-ball rates, more importantly. Maybe Addison Reed will figure it out — his home run per fly ball rate was certainly unlucky looking last year — but there are a few things working against him. For one, he’s been removed from the role before. For two, his velocity is slowly falling into below-average territory. And for three, he’s an extreme fly ball guy in a tough park for that sort of thing. He’s always struggled with homers, and those can kill a closer. Evan Marshall has a more complete arsenal, gets grounders and strikeouts, and hasn’t really ever struggled with homers.

10) Nate Eovaldi’s splitter will change everything.
My first stance on Eovaldi was that his curve could be the platoon-buster he needed. But the curve isn’t really that great. It’s kinda soft. It doesn’t have either the velocity (77 mph) to be a hard curve or the drop (-7 inches) to be a curve for grounders. It’s kind of meh by results, too (8% whiffs, 50% grounders). But then you watch him throw his new splitter. And you get excited, but it could really be the rug that ties the room together. This is why you start with velocity and look for the adjustments that make you a great power pitcher. Of course, this is vague — his splitter won’t cure world hunger — so I’ll put some numbers on it. Eovaldi will strikeout more than eight per nine and have an era below 3.6. (Yankee stadium and the AL make it harder for me to push that ERA down lower.)