Mike Podhorzer’s 2025 Bold Predictions — A Review

Now that the 2025 regular season is in the books, it’s time to review my preseason posts! Let’s start with the fan favorite, the 2025 Bold Predictions. This is always a fun one to put together and every time there’s a breakout I feel like I should have seen coming, I always feel regret if that player failed to make it into this article. Let’s see who did make it, because I surely don’t remember!

Oneil Cruz Hits 35 Home Runs

Actual home run total: 20, which was one fewer than he hit in 2024. He also recorded 55 fewer PAs than in 2024, so I’d like to think he would have at least eclipsed that season’s total with more PAs. Anyway, this was a disaster of a season for Cruz, though with 38 steals, versus just 22 last year, it wasn’t so terrible for fantasy owners. What proved to be the last nail in the coffin was ultimately becoming a strong side platoon player, sitting against lefties after a horrid performance against them (.196 wOBA this season, .249 career).

Getting back to the homers, he actually posted a slightly higher HR/FB rate this year, along with a higher FB%. That should have been great for his home run total, but it was partially offset by an increased strikeout rate as well. The Statcast metrics here are absurdly good, so it’s a wonder that he’s been stuck in the high teen HR/FB rate range. It’s not even like his pitcher friendly home park is killing him, as he still owns a 17.7% HR/FB rate at home (versus a 20.1% mark on the road).

Since he can’t hit lefties and he’s not good enough defensively to justify starting against them, it’s tough to to buy a rebound next year. I still think there’s another mid-20% HR/FB rate in him and a 30-40 home run season. But will he get enough PAs to reach that total if he sits against lefties?

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Victor Scott II (NFBC ADP 357) Outearns Dylan Crews (NFBC ADP 125)

Based on default Auction Calculator settings, Scott lost his owners $8.9, but Crews lost his owners even more value at $17.4. Gosh, this was a terrible way to be right about a bold prediction! Though Scott lost less value than Crews, a lot of the discrepancy stemmed from Crews missing a chunk of time to injury. He finished the season with just 322 PAs, but paced for around 20 home runs and 34 steals over 600+ PAs.

On the other hand, Scott was healthy most of the season, but was awful offensively and did end up losing some playing time. He was the definition of a one-category contributor, stealing 34 bases, but doing almost nothing else positive. So if you owned Scott, particularly in a deep league, you may have started him for as long as he remained in the lineup. But at least Crews hit the IL and you would have been able to replace him, benefiting from additional counting stats.

So all in all, while Scott did technically “outearn” Crews, the latter was still more valuable for fantasy owners. Crews should make for an excellent bounceback candidate next year and could really earn his new owners a nice profit, depending on his price. On the other hand, I doubt Scott heads into the season with a starting job.

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Kris Bryant Posts a .200 ISO

LOLOLOLOLOL. I was really encouraged by his Spring Training performance that made me believe he was healthier than he has been in many seasons. Perhaps he would finally recapture his early career power and also actually benefit from playing half his games at Coors Field.

Instead, Bryant did what he does best — hit the IL. He was limited to just 39 at-bats, while posting a .051 ISO. 2026 sleeper?!

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The Lowes Combine for 55 Dingers

As a reminder, I was talking about the pair of Rays, Brandon Lowe and Josh Lowe. I was excited about their new temporary home, though the park factors were oddly very different than expected. Despite matching Yankee Stadium’s dimensions, George M. Steinbrenner Field actually finished with just a 96 left-handed home run park factor, meaning it suppressed dingers from that side. That compared to a 113 park factor from Yankee Stadium itself!

That said, Brandon still finished with 31 home runs, the second highest total of his career and 10 more than in 2024. Unfortunately, Josh’s season start was delayed due to injury, so he finished with just 435 PAs and only 11 home runs. He didn’t enjoy the power spike I had hoped for. So the pair totaled just 42 home runs, a whole 13 short of my bold prediction.

Brandon may have hit even more if it weren’t for a career worst FB%, the first time it fell below 40% over a full season. Josh’s FB% plummeted even more than Brandon’s, falling below 30% for the first time after hovering around 40% during his first three season. That’s a pretty crazy dropoff and partly explains the power outage.

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Isaac Paredes Earns Top 6 Fantasy Value Among Third Basemen

Nope, he finished 21st among third baseman. He didn’t even make the top 20 and I boldly predicted top six! Of course, injury struck again. Paredes finished with just 438 PAs, but rebounded off a down 2024. He even hit one more home run than in 2024 in around 200 fewer PAs. The hope here was a move to a friendlier home park for home runs would really help his pull-happy power. He did end up posting a higher HR/FB rate at home, though not by a significant margin.

All of his skills were very similar to his 2023 level, though his HR/FB rate was a bit lower so unless he went on a hot streak, he probably wouldn’t have finished with 30+ home runs. But if he did eclipse the 600 PA plateau and remained healthy all season, he would have certainly made the top 10. However, he would have likely finished eighth at best given the strong performances of the top seven.

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All 5 Starting Pitchers Below Exceed Their ATC K% Projection

Arrrgggggghhhhhh, so close! The theme here was all these names enjoyed velocity surges during Spring Training. I love seeing such spikes and it’s one of the drivers when I’m predicting breakouts. I guess I was too confident by including five pitchers on this list, but four actually posted significantly higher strikeout rates than projected.

The lone pitcher that failed to, Bryce Miller, was out for multiple months with elbow inflammation, limiting him to just 90.1 innings on the season. He finished with a strikeout rate significantly below his first two seasons, so you have to wonder how much of that could be blamed on the injury.

As far as maintaining the Spring velocity spikes, Luzardo, Sánchez, and Meyer did finish the season with higher average fastball/sinker velocities than in 2024. However, Mize actually finished with a fastball velocity 0.9 MPH lower than in 2024, which is quite the dramatic decline, and surprising given the higher strikeout rate. Miller also experienced a smaller decline in fastball velocity. What this suggests is that while it’s important to track Spring Training velocity, spikes aren’t automatically carried over into and throughout the regular season. It’s anyone’s guess which will stick and which won’t, though.

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Mike Clevinger Records More Saves Than Félix Bautista

Oh my heavens. Does it get any more embarrassing than this? Clevinger ended up saving zero games, and allowed five runs in 5.2 innings, while walking eight batters. That brutal performance was enough to get him DFA’d in mid-April, before returning to a starting role at Triple-A.

Bautista saved just 19 games, so I was at least partially right to be pessimistic about his return from TJ surgery in 2023. His skills fell off, including an ugly 16.2% walk rate, and he ended up recording just 34.2 innings before hitting the IL with a shoulder injury.

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Zebby Matthews Earns The Second Highest Fantasy Value Among Twins Starters

I was super excited about Matthews after his Spring Training velocity spike. I therefore decided not to include him in the earlier bold prediction about strikeout rate, and instead broke him out into his own.

This prediction already started off poorly when he was surprisingly left out of the opening day rotation. He ended up not making his debut until mid-May after eight dominant starts at Triple-A. But once he did return to the Majors, things did not go his way. He suffered from an inflated .357 BABIP, driven by a 25.8% LD% against, and that suppressed his LOB% as well. All these issues drove up his ERA to 5.56, which was well above his 3.82 SIERA, but his 4.64 xERA suggests some of that high BABIP was deserved.

So far, he’s been that pitcher everyone loves to consider “too hittable”. Yes, that’s been the case so far, but is it an inherent lack of skill, or has it just been a string of bad fortune? Just 117 career MLB innings aren’t enough to give us the answer.

For now, he’s a potentially prime sleeper in 2025 if he does have a rotation spot, and he likely won’t cost much in case he proves the “too hittable” label should stick.

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Yusei Kikuchi (NFBC ADP 171) Outearns Aaron Nola (NFBC ADP 88)

Man oh man, what’s up with me picking two players that lost his owners value this year?! Kikuchi did end up outearning Nola, but only because he lost his owners $17.8, while Nola lost his owners $20.9.

Though Kikuchi’s ERA remained stable, his strikeout rate plummeted to the lowest since his 2019 debut, while his walk rate jumped. That’s a bad combination. It led to a bloated 1.42 WHIP, and the fact that he won just seven games meant he wasn’t earning much positive value anywhere. His velocity was down a bit and the quality of his stuff decline dramatically. It’s anyone’s guess if the strikeouts return, but he’s clearly not pursuing without them.

I was seriously worried about Nola’s Spring Training velocity loss and my pessimism did prove right here. Nola battled injury, limiting him to just 94.1 innings, but he posted a career worst 6.01 ERA when he did take the mound. He clearly suffered from some extremely poor fortune, as both ERA estimators finished well below his actual ERA, as a high HR/FB rate and low LOB% really ruined his season. If his velocity is back next Spring, he’s an easy rebound candidate, and even if it doesn’t, he should still be much better.

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