Jeff Zimmerman’s 2025 BOLD Predictions
It’s time to go out on limb and make a few BOLD predictions. All of the ranks will be determined by using our auction calculator. All ADP mentioned is from 11 NFBC Main Event drafts.
1. Cristopher Sánchez will be a top-3 starting pitcher
Sánchez has some Framber Valdez in him with a great groundball rate (career 57% GB%) and low walks (career 2.3 BB/9). Reports have his fastball velocity up, so maybe some of his Spring Training 13.1 K/9 (20% SwStr%) will carry over the regular season. I hope he gets enough Wins to crack the top three.
2. Lawrence Butler and Mark Vientos will be bottom-200 hitters
Every year, young hitters have great second halves and everyone wants to buy in the next year. In both of these cases, I see a ton of downside.
With Butler, he had a hot July and was mediocre after that. Here are his results with his July numbers removed where he performed like Andrew Benintendi.
| AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| July | .363 | .408 | .802 | 1.210 |
| The rest | .234 | .292 | .402 | .694 |
| Andrew Benintendi | .229 | .289 | .396 | .685 |
I want to see more than one hot month before believing in him. No more going all in with the Zack Gelofs and Oscar Gonzalezs of the world.
With Vientos, I don’t like his underlying skill set. Here are the closest comps to his core attributes of hitting the ball, plate decisions, and running ability.
If anyone wants to hope on a name, it’s Corey Seager. The rest of these guys never made it in the league, are catchers, or are power-only DH’s. It’s not a chance I’ll take with an early pick
3. Spencer Strider will out-earn Jacob deGrom.
At the time I’m writing this, deGrom is going at pick 37 while Strider is going at pick 93. Both have shown the ability to be the best pitcher in the game but I believe in Strider staying healthy once he returns compared to deGrom. And I’ll keep picking on deGrom with my next prediction.
4. Jacob deGrom, Tarik Skubal, Garrett Crochet, and Max Fried will underperform their combined innings projection by 175 IP.
Here are our (Depth Charts) and my comp-based predictions for the group. The predictions came from work I did after publishing The Process this year.
| Name | FG’s DC | Mine | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| deGrom | 132 | 81 | -51 |
| Skubal | 198 | 133 | -65 |
| Crochet | 157 | 94 | -63 |
| Fried | 176 | 88 | -88 |
| Total | 663 | 396 | -267 |
Each pitcher could go over or under their total, but I predict that the group will be way under their projections. I don’t feel great about the Skubal addition but I have to be BOLD, so here we go.
5. Grant Holmes will outperform Clay Holmes.
Grant Holmes (243 ADP) is going 75 picks after Clay Holmes (168 ADP). I’m high on Grant Holmes for the changes he implemented in the second half with a 9.8 K/9, 1.9 BB/9, and 3.57 xFIP (4.38 ERA, .340 BABIP). What I like the most, is that all three of his pitches generate a ton of swing-and-miss.
Pitch: SwStr%
Four-seamer: 9%
Slider: 24%
Curve: 23%
My issue with Clay is that he is projected 170 IP. In the last 14 years, the most a pitcher has thrown going from only closing to starting was Seth Lugo with 146 IP in 2023. I won’t bet on setting a record and have him closer to 130 IP.
6. Xavier Edwards will have more stolen bases than RBI.
The Slap Dick Prospect was close last season with 43 RBI and 36 SB. I have no faith that the bottom of the Marlins lineup will be on base enough for Edwards to hit them in. The Marlins will be competing to be the worst team in baseball, so there is no reason for Edwards to have the green light and push that stolen base number up.
7. Robert Garcia (417 ADP) will have more of the Rangers Saves than Chris Martin (209 ADP).
Normally, when two pitchers are fighting over the closer’s job, go with the righty (Martin). In this case, I’ll swap the pair, especially considering the cost.
8. Over the final two months, Dalton Rushing will get more starts at catcher than Will Smith.
I think Smith may be ending his effective career while Rushing is just starting his. The 29-year-old Smith hit just .206/.295/.331 with 5 HR in the second half. In AAA last season, Rushing hit .271/.384/.512 with 26 HR. To verify, I’ll compare August, September, and October starts for the pair.
One note on the Dodgers, I want to see how they handle declining veterans with large remaining contracts. Do they keep running them out there like the Yankees try (e.g. DJ LeMahieu) or do they play better but cheaper talent. I think they only thing that could hold back the Dodgers is if they keep playing unproductive vets. Smith is likely the first test case.
9. Zach Dezenzo outperforms Cam Smith.
I’m pretty sure Cam Smith Fan Boys will plan on burning me alive after reading this. What are BOLD predictions without a good death threat.
The pair are tearing up Spring Training with Dezenzo with a 1.005 OPS and Cam Smith at 1.362. I have little faith Christian Walker can stay healthy and Jon Singleton is good. Both are fighting for playing time with others (McCormick, Melton) and each other for the outfield spot. I like the idea of getting both but it’s time to go BOLD.
10. Ha-Seong Kim 김하성 will be Tampa’s top fantasy hitter.
I really wanted to add the caveat: “besides Junior Caminero“, but again I have to go BOLD. Rays rarely play a guy every day, but once Kim is healthy, he will be the everyday shortstop. The Rays have no problems running, so Kim could always have the green light (38 SB in 2023) and the smaller home park could push him to a 30 HR pace.
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.
These are good, insightful, bold perditions! Thank you Jeff!
What is the methodology behind your innings projections?
Comps of guys with similar talent and medical (IP) histories. I have a range of outcomes.
130 IP for Clay Holmes in 2025 makes sense. It would be about 70 IP more than 2024 — about the same increase as Michael King had from 2023 to 2024.
Maybe half of these are bold
And here you are, not even making any effort to produce a single prediction, let alone a bold one. You are full of hot air, aren’t you?
The bit about Lawrence Butler is misleading considering it was a breakout. If you include the first half, you are skewing to the downside way too heavily.
Yeah, it wasn’t just “one hot month.” He hit .273/.315/.497 with 10 HR/10 SB and solid run production in August and September. I understand not wanting to pay the current price for him, but that just felt lazy and inaccurate.
Agreed with you both, I don’t think the July-vs-The Rest split is the fairest or most accurate way to measure his season. Seemed like there were real gains in Contact% and K% throughout the second half that could be lasting.
BUT, it allowed me to troll the dirty dawg who took him 1 pick before me. So, it was useful!
Yep. Really veering into lies, damned lies, and statistics territory with the author’s framing.
Butler’s wRC+ by month:
April: 88 (89 PA)
May: 11 (32 PA)
June: 13 (29 PA)
July: 241 (98 PA)
August: 146 (103 PA)
September: 115 (100 PA)
Why in the world would the Dodgers sign a catcher, any catcher to a 10 year extension taking Smith through his age 39 season? I can’t see them bailing on him with 9 years left on that contract.
I figured they’d move him to DH or 1B in later years but there certainly aren’t any openings soon. He still has a few good C years left imo
To save on AAV. It’s $14M a year. I’d essentially look at the back half as deferred money.
Jeff, thanks again. Hiw do I go retrieving your past updates on website? Is there a “ library” where I can select from menu?
Not sure this is the best way, but if you click on Jeff’s name at the top of the article, it will give you all of his posts starting with the most recent article. If you are looking for past bold predictions, it may take awhile to get to because he writes a ton of stuff.
That worked. Thanks so much.
I don’t think one can really go full bold unless the entire article is in bold letters. If in all caps as well, even better.
My grades on if you met the bold criteria:
The one I thought was least bold was #5. I’d call that more likely than not.
Fair point. I just really like Clay Holmes this year and think he’ll be awesome.
The call on Will Smith might be premature but I was already planning on targeting Rushing everywhere. He passes the eye test.
i love you jeff but saying pitchers will get and doing almost all predictions via 1v1 playerpredictions and a 1v1 cat predictions i kinda not what i expect or remember from bold predictions of years past/by other analysts. i mean saying someone will outperform some one other person or play more in a certain timeframe feels to me like such sneaky non-boldness. yea of course dalton rushing could play more than will smith in a certain month. thats like 30/70 proposition imho not a X will b a top 5 reliever or top ten basestealer. im apologize if im unfair but the ore i write and think about it the lamer those 1v1 predictions get. quite lame in terms of boldness. i predict Jasson D. outperforms Aaron Judge in May. hey if Aaron gets hurt or slumps im home.
Glad you got home, we were worried about you driving in this condition.
must have been some good whiskey
You should know, you drank it all.
Seems kind of harsh on Walker to have little faith. He’s been dealing with the oblique since 2021 but last year was his only time on the IL since then. Over 2022-2023, he was 6th in games played in all of baseball. Even counting last year, he’s 21st in games played in the league from 2022 through 2024.
Maybe he doesn’t stay healthy, but I’m not sure why it should be thought of as automatic and not trust him to stay healthy after he’s been more trustworthy than most players for the last 3-years.
And last year, it sounds like it was fluky and missing the 5 weeks he missed was erring on the side of caution:
He’s still projected to be ready for opening day, just today they said he’s playing this weekend, which makes me think that even if he in the lineup OD, he shouldn’t be too far behind that…
I think the Butler numbers are a bit misleading. Yes July was by far his best month, but was also good in August (.886 OPS) and ok in September (.739 OPS) for a second half slash of .300/.345/.553. Second half improvements backed up by a vastly lower strikeout rate. It’s fair enough to say that you don’t want to bet on him based on that small of a sample, but it’s not accurate to say he only had one good month.
That would be quite a feat for Kim since he’s out for the first 6-8 weeks of the season.
Looks like you pulled his ATC projection? Edwards did it last season with 26 RBIs and 31 SBs.
How is Will Smith unproductive? He just turned 30 and is coming off a +2.7 WAR season.
Also, they mainly played Rushing in LF last year once he got to AAA — which does not suggest they view him as a Smith replacement any time soon. 30 GS at LF/DH vs. 6 GS at C in AAA in 2024.