Jeff Zimmerman’s 10 Bold Fantasy Predictions
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.
In the first half of the 2012 season, Torii Hunter was struggling with his hitting. In early June, he shortened up his swing and raised his OPS from .708 to .857. Even though he won’t be able to sustain his second half BABIP (.423), it won’t be as bad as his first half BABIP (.289).
Eric Hosmer will not regress and will continue to struggle with hitting.
Hosmer hit .232/.304/.359 in 2012 after posting triple slash line of .293/.334/.465 in his rookie season. The main drag on Hosmer’s value was his .255 BABIP. After watching way too much of Hosmer play, his main issue is swinging at balls outside of the strike zone. Here is his difference in percentage points above or below the league average for swinging at any pitch (catchers perspective).
vs LHP
vs RHP
The left-handed hitting Hosmer loves to swing at the inside pitch compared to the rest of the league. Over the past two seasons, he ranks 17th in the league (min 1000 PA) in O-Swing% (pfx). His main problem is he makes too much weak contact with these outside pitches. Unless Hosmer learns to be more patient at the plate, he will not reach his full potential.
Mike Trout will not be a top 15 fantasy player.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back off with the torches. Hear me out. After last season, I looked out how pitchers were adapting to Trout. In August and September, he hit only .287 as the number of his ground balls increased. Pitchers will continue to adjust to him and I could see him continue to struggle. He will still have a good season, just not a great one.
Yu Darvish will be a top 5 fantasy pitcher.
He improved steadily as the season went on as he was able to find the strike zone more and more. I expect the same from him in 2013. He should be able to get Wins with the Texas offense behind him and his strikeout numbers may be through the roof. If he can do what he did over his last 9 regular season starts (2.95 ERA, 10.7 K/9, 2.7 BB/9), he will be a draft day steal.
Yoenis Cespedes will continue to improve and be a top 20 fantasy player.
Cespedes had the raw tools when he entered the league to dominate, but he was lacking plate discipline. He improved on his plate discipline over the season’s course by seeing his K% go from 24% in March to May to 16% in August to October. His triple slash line went from .245/.319/.434 in the first third of the season to .275/.350/.472 in the last third. My one reservation against him in fantasy baseball is the rest of the Oakland lineup. Can they help him accumulate enough counting stats to be a top 15 player.
Half of the following 10 pitchers will spend time on the DL in 2013: Edwin Jackson, Edinson Volquez, Gio Gonzalez, James Shields, Jarrod Parker, Jon Lester, Jeremy Hellickson, Stephen Strasburg, Tim Lincecum and Yovani Gallardo.
I found pitchers who are unable to throw pitches in the strike zone are more injury prone. Each of the preceding pitcher had a Zone% under 47% in 2012 and historically half of those pitcher end up on the DL.
Alex Rodriguez will give top 10 third base production over the season’s last 2 months.
He is pushing to be back by the All-Star game. He is a stubborn centaur. Giving him a month to adjust, I see him providing decent production over those last couple of months.
R.A. Dickey will repeat his 2012 Cy Young season.
Historically, knuckleballers have done better in domes than away from them. It will be to Toronto’s advantage to get him throwing in the controlled conditions of domes as much as possible. Also, the rest of the A.L. is not used to him yet and may initially struggle against him.
Jeff Francoeur will out produce Wil Myers.
That hurt to type. Myers will be held back from starting the season in the majors because of service time and injuries. Second, Myers, like Frenchy, struggles with plate discipline. Pitchers will take advantage of this weakness. Finally, Frenchy as new guns:
Mariano Rivera will not be a top 15 reliever.
Surgery and age will finally do him in during his last season. His cutter won’t be the same because his arm is not the same. The farewell tour will just be a hard to watch as he is sent out to the wolves every night.
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.
how come no comments yet?
what about chris young and wade miley?
Glad to see someone finally in on RA!
Question on the Myers/Frenchy compare – is that on WAR?
5×5 fantasy. I think Frenchy will get more chances for counting stats and Myers isn’t going to pull a Trout or Harper.
Hmmm, how worried should I be about Stras? I have him as 1c behind Kershaw and Verlander. Was thinking of snagging him earlyish. Do I back off? Just how bold is this prediction?
Kind of bold, but I am backing way off of him next year. For my Hardball Times Annual article, I could only find 3 hard throwing young pitchers who had TJS surgery (Wood, Johnson and Liriano). They each experienced more arm trouble between 400 and 800 IP after returning from surgery.
People seem to be taking the extremes on Dickey. I’ve heard about pitching in Domes before…then there was the article on how he was worse against pitchers compared to the league average…not to mention knuckle-ballers being unpredictable. I’m betting on RA having a big year in my AL-Only league…hope you are right Jeff!
I’m a big RA fan (and Mets fan). The storyline is there and makes sense, regarding his progress from ’09 and prior to ’10-11 and then the leap forward in ’12 as he introduced his third knuckleball variation. I also think the “big bad AL East” is a bit overblown with the aging and injured Yanks, the Sox trading so much talent (and Ortiz still hampered by his heel?). Rays have never been big bats, more pitching and D, leaving the O’s, at least until the Yanks start to get healthy. Add in the notes you mention about domes and his production vs pitchers and I think he’s a top 10 pitcher this year.
Wasn’t Trout a top 15 fantasy player in August and September?
13th overall in 5×5 according to BBM from august 1st to the end of september(he creeps up to #9 if you go to the end of the season.
If that is him getting figured out I’m more than happy with that as his floor.
Just about every pitcher had a zone% under 47 in 2012…
Yeah. The prediction is fine, but the expressed reason… 44.9% was league average last year.
“He is pushing to be back by the All-Star game. He is a stubborn centuar. Giving him a month to adjust, I see him provideing decent production over those last couple of months.”
Providing.
You could’ve corrected “centaur” too, since you were at it.
Nice catch. Not a word I come across very often so it didn’t stand out.
Still though “stubborn centaur” is hilarious….file this one under “too specific to not have a hint of truth”
http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/ex-alex-rodriguez-had-portraits-of-himself-as-a-centaur-over-his-bed-20093010?stop_mobi=yes
Are you going to be posting a NL version of this as well by chance?
Betting against the Sandman? Open the windows, you need air
Didn’t even notice the entire AL focus.
jeff i love your Zone% stuff. But, I think a control you may want to implement is differentiating an inability to throw strikes from a conscious decision to get batters to chase. Adding in F-Strike% would be a good way to look at that, I think.
If you’ve already done as such, then never mind.
Thanks for the idea.
So basically, Cespedes will have a better season than Trout?
Not complaining as I have both on my dynasty team, but seems to be a bit of a disconnect.
Can we please stop comparing players in the majors to players who have been sent down? Or at least clarify whether you mean per-game or not.
but Myers in being taken 50 spots higher than Frenchy at mockdraftcentral.com.
As a huge Trout fan, the most unsustainable thing is the 21% HR/FB rate. The kid has every kind of speed (foot, bat, reflex, recognition) but none of those can assuredly buoy that kind of rate year to year. That, and he saw a really high amount of strikes proportionate to how good he was hitting last year. He makes roughly average contact with pitches outside the zone but swings at a below average amount of them to make his O%s a plus. He has an average contact rate on pitches in the zone. He should edge out ahead though, however, on the fact that he already has an wacky-low Z-Swing%. This should mostly compensate for the fact that he’s likely to see less strikes this year, as he can probably just swing a little more.
Long story short – His average is more likely to hold up in the .295+ range than for his slugging to remain above .500. Even that’s a possibility with scary bat speed and elite patience.
I don’t feel like checking but my gut says that a full season of .287 with 45+ steals and even 15 home runs while leading off for the Angels is likely top 15 quality stuff.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. Stop pretending that you do.
A resounding rebuttal. Please elaborate on how using batted ball and plate discipline stats to estimate skills related to batted ball and plate discipline stats is ‘pretending’ I know anything aside from those stats.
Hey Jeff, clarification question: only 25% of SP last year had a 47% or higher zone%… so how is it that the rest are 50% likely to be on the DL if half of 75% had < 47% zone%?
Use the Pitchf/x zone%, not the ones from BIS values.
Mariano Rivera??? Heresy. But whatever. It’s baseball season again. In the words of Homer Simpson, “Woo hoo!”
My common tired 10 themes going into the season:
#1 – Mike Trout is not as good as he showed. He is up for a HUGE regression.
#2 – Bryce Harper is not as average as he showed. He’s a BREAKOUT waiting to happen.
#3 – Yoenis Cespedes is about to be the best thing ever.
#4 – I don’t care if Matt Moore can’t throw a strike and when he does it gets knocked out of the park. He’s on the verge of stardom.
#5 – Evan Longoria’s ADP is top 20 for 5 straight years yet the guy has never finished top 20 at season’s end.
#6 – Jason Heyward stock continues to rise out the roof even thought the guy has never came put together a great fantasy season due to injuries or ineffectiveness.
#7 – Dan Uggla is trash even though the guy has the best power numbers of any 2B in history. His bad batting average the last 2 years overshadows the fact the guys R, RBI, and HR are as good as it gets at 2B.
#8 – Aroldis Chapman doesn’t have what it takes to be in the rotation. He needs to be the Reds closer. I heard the exact same thing about Chris Sale, CJ Wilson, Alexi Ogando, etc
#9 – RA Dickey will bounceback to earth because he pitches in a tough division. Plus he’s a one year wonder (incorrect).
#10 – Kris Medlen is the real deal. Did you see his ERA last year. That’s the pitcher who he is (basically Greg Maddux from 1989-1997)
This is really inconsistent. Are these the points of view you’re tired of hearing or your own outlook on storylines that you’ve heard a lot? Some are framed as ‘X thing I’ve heard a lot which is incorrect’ and the rest are ‘X news thing corrected to fit my point of view’
Which one is my point of view?
I had Trout last year and he won my league for me, no doubt. I had first pick in two drafts this year and didn’t take him. In my third league, I was happy to have him taken first so I could get Cabrera at second pick. Not saying he isn’t a really good player, but I am surprised at how many people look at last year and seem to expect the same this year. There’s a reason that was a story for the ages – because it was totally unexpected based on what was known about him before then. I don’t think he will catch lightning in a bottle twice.
The lesson here? Never bet against Mike Trout.