Odd Lots: The Birchwood Brothers’ Ten Bold Predictions For 2017

“Be not too bold.” So wrote Edmund Spenser in his 1590 best-seller The Faerie Queene, a work so obscure, so archaic, and so tedious that even we can’t stand reading it. And anyway, it’s bad advice, at least when it comes to something called Bold Predictions, and at least for us Birchwood Brothers, whose stock in trade is identifying the unheralded and unsuccessful before they become heralded and unsuccessful. Thus, we pledge: nobody among our ten bold predictions cost more than $1 in the just-completed Tout Wars mixed auction. Indeed, some were reserve-round picks, and some weren’t chosen at all. And to keep our promise, we’re starting with a bonus pick, which includes guys who went for more than $1, though not much more. Thus, in ascending order of improbability, we have:

11. The Padres Outfield Will Steal, In The Aggregate, At Least 100 Bases. When Padres Manager Andy Green has fast guys on his team, he loves to run with them. And he has fast guys. Travis Jankowski you know about, though you didn’t this time last year. Manuel Margot—have you seen this guy run? He’s only 22, and if he develops any discretion on the basepaths, 30 SBs is his downside. Alex Dickerson is plenty fast, too. Ah, you say: Dickerson’s fast, but he’s sidelined with a back problem, and as noted orthopedist Paulie Walnuts observed, “when it comes to backs, nobody knows anything, really.” And, you add, Dickerson’s replacement is Hunter Renfroe, who has many sterling virtues, among which is not included extraordinary swiftness on the basepaths. But we’re not so sure that Renfroe makes the cut, at least at the start of the season. He strikes out a good deal (though less this spring than heretofore), doesn’t draw walks, and isn’t much of an outfielder. A little more seasoning won’t hurt. And his replacement, if Dickerson is hors de combat: the now-healthy and very fast Corey Spangenberg, an infielder by trade who’s been playing some outfield precisely because, it appears, Green wants to get him in the lineup.

10. Andrew Toles will do as well in 450 plate appearances as he did in 115 last season. So that’s .314/.365/.505 with about 10 home runs and (we envision) 10 stolen bases, more if he bats towards the top of the order and manager Dave Roberts lets him run. What is there in this guy’s record that makes you think he won’t keep hitting? And what is there that makes you think he’s not a good fielder and a good runner? And now, thanks to the very foreseeable fact of Andre Ethier’s injury, he will be able to play regularly, which we envision will produce a Wally Pipp situation vis-à-vis Ethier if the latter returns. We’ll stipulate that Toles isn’t so hot against lefthanded pitching, and that he will be platooning with Franklin Gutierrez, who is. But that still means 400 to 450 PAs.

9. Matt Boyd will be a top-40 starting pitcher. We don’t think much of the 2017-model Tigers. All winter, they have seemed to be rudderless, and we expect neither Al Avila nor Brad Ausmus to be on the payroll a year from now. But we do like the Tigers’ bullpen, now that Shane Greene has found his niche as a setup guy and Bruce Rondon is more than occasionally unhittable. Boyd started to look last year like the pitcher his minor league numbers suggested he might be. But he has trouble third time through the order, and should appreciate the help from the solidified bullpen. We envision a 2017 for Boyd that’s something like Matt Moore’s 2016.

8. Jimmy Nelson will also be a top-40 pitcher. We’re just suckers for guys (cf. Liam Hendriks) who attribute the good that befalls them to Pilates. But it’s more than that. We’ve already identified Nelson as 2016’s unluckiest pitcher, and now we see that, of 51 batters faced this spring, he’s struck out 16 and walked only two. These are Scherzeresque numbers. Too small a sample? In this as in all else we believe Dan Rosenheck, whose groundbreaking research suggests that improved spring training walk and strikeout rates often betoken regular-season improvement.

7. Delino DeShields will do approximately what we thought he’d do last season. We don’t know what happened to DeShields last year. His performance was pervasively bad, and so were his stats, even after he was sent to the minors. DeShields says it was because he spent last winter bulking up and came into spring training looking like a linebacker, which didn’t suit a guy whose selling point is speed. So this winter he lost 30 pounds, and he says his speed is back. 12 for 12 in stolen bases says he is right. He’s also walking more and striking out less than is his wont. He’s played himself into a platoon role in left field, and all that stands between him and the center field job he lost a year ago is Carlos Gomez, whose magnificent September has people far too willing, we think, to forget his dreadful April, May, June, July, and August, and his disappointing 2015. We hypothesize that DeShields is the player he seemed to be in 2015, when, at 22, he hit .261/.344/.374 with 25 stolen bases in 492 PAs, only now he’s better.

6. Aaron Altherr will also do approximately what we thought he’d do last season. We envisioned that (1) his doubles power would produce not just doubles but home runs in Citizens Bank Park; (2) his excellent glove would keep him in the lineup, such that (3) he’d be able to exploit his likewise excellent speed and on-base skills for 20-plus stolen bases. We thought he’d improve on the .241/.338/.489 he posted in 2015. Instead, he tore a ligament in his wrist in spring training, and looked clueless and powerless once he returned in late July. This year, he will supposedly platoon with left-handed hitter Michael Saunders in left field. We understand why the Phillies picked up Saunders—he came cheap and short-term, and they didn’t know whether Altherr could still play. He’s having a good spring, so evidently he still can. Saunders, meanwhile, hit .172/.282/.489 in the second half last season, and was quite possibly the worst starting outfielder in the majors, whereas Altherr hits righties quite well and could play center if they wanted him to. We say he has a full-time job by the end of April, and at least duplicates his 2015 stats.

5. Scott Schebler will duplicate his second-half stats over a full season with a nearly full-time job, except he’ll show more power. Those stats were .290/.357/.461, with 8 home runs in 213 plate appearances. What is there about him that makes people think he’s not a professional hitter and a major league player? The hitting stats were projectible, he’s got a decent glove, a strong arm, and good speed, and he can even hit lefties a little, though he hasn’t shown it in the majors yet. And he’s got some serious home run totals in the minors: those 13 homers in Louisville are more than Adam Duvall could manage when he was there. We envision stats as above plus at least 20 home runs.

4. You will get four or five months of the 2015-model Matt Duffy. Everyone knows that Duffy had a superb rookie season with the Giants in 2015, then a disappointing 2016 during which he was plagued by an Achilles tendon problem, for which he had surgery in September. His recovery’s going slowly, though, and he will start the season on the DL. As it happens, one of us had exactly the same Achilles surgery that Duffy had for exactly the same condition, and now can play shortstop just as well as he did before he got hurt. We can tell you that (1) the condition isn’t crippling, so you think you can function with it, but is phenomenally annoying, and will bother you every step you take; and (2) can be corrected only by surgery, which (3) if performed properly, almost always produces a complete recovery. (The bad news is that the problem is often bilateral.) So maybe Duffy’s a slow healer, but he will heal, and when he does there’s no reason to think he can’t duplicate 2015. He will play shortstop and is certainly worth grabbing if you’ve got either a DL or even a small reserve roster.

3. Ryan Pressly will get at least 20 saves. He’s got a great repertoire and (so we read) an elite spin rate. He’s been wowing people visually in wherever it is that the Twins have spring training. His spring stats suggest that the spike in strikeouts and the reduction in walks that we saw last season are sustainable. The only problem is that his pitches continue to produce fly balls, which led to the home runs that are the only blemish on his record this spring and kept him from being a top-five setup guy last year. But he’s gotten ground outs before, and, we predict, will get them again. Only Brandon Kintzler is ahead of Pressly in the Twins’ bullpen, and closers who strike out fewer than 6 guys per 9 rarely keep their jobs for long, as Matt Capps and Brandon League can tell you.

2. Taylor Motter will be a guy you actually want. The Mariners acquired Motter from Tampa Bay this winter for a song, and the song was “We Built This City,” not “Little Red Corvette.” Motter’s audition with the Rays last season was unbelievably bad (.188/.290/.300), and he was nearly as bad after his demotion to Triple-A. But a good spring has won him the Willie Bloomquist Mariner-Utility-Guy role, and we’re inclined to look to Motter’s 2015 numbers at Durham for a guide to what might happen now. They were pretty good: .292/.366/.471—a bit better than what Nick Franklin did in the same place at the same time, except Motter also stole 26 bases in 34 attempts. So let’s speculate that Motter gets 200 plate appearances—about what his predecessor Shawn O’Malley got last year. He should hit .260 or better with a good OBP, 5 to 10 home runs (all right—more like 5), and double-digit stolen bases. He qualifies at shortstop now, and should qualify at several other positions before long. Not someone you want in your starting lineup, maybe, but not a bad guy to have when someone gets hurt or you’re desperate for steals.

1. Jaime Schultz will be a valuable starting pitcher in the second half. Last year, our somewhat whimsical prediction was that Schultz, though groomed as a starter, would be Tampa Bay’s closer by the end of the season. This year, though, we’re serious, or at least as serious as a Fantasy baseball blog devoted primarily to giggles can be. Looking at Schultz now, we see a starter, and the starter we see is Blake Snell. Really: they’ve both got the same fastball/curveball arsenal, and their stats when both pitched for Durham last season were pretty close. Sure, Snell’s were better; he’s probably a better pitcher. But Schultz is having a superb spring doing what he does: walking some guys, but striking out a lot more than he walks, keeping the ball in the park, and giving up very few hits (and so far no runs). Jose De Leon may (or may not) be ahead of Schultz in the callup line when Matt Andriese demonstrates (as we think he will) that he’s better suited to relief or Alex Cobb gets hurt, but we predict that Schultz gets promoted by July. Grab him now in your deep draft and stash him; we think you’ll be pleased. And wait–here’s a late-breaking bulletin: Schultz may stick with the team as a reliever. Imagine that, God forbid, something happens to Alex Colome and that Brad Boxberger. Then take a look at the Rays’ bullpen full of useful but so-so veterans. It’s not impossible to imagine Schultz vaulting over all of them. So maybe he’s the closer after all.