Paul Sporer’s 2026 Bold Predictions
I’ve got 10 coming with one per position at C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, RP plus two at both OF and SP. While the first one will be catcher, we’re not going around the horn in that order, rather we’ll get spicier as we go through these in a Hot Ones-esque sort of way. You may have a different spice meter and I’m happy to hear if you think I have one firmly out of place.
C: Will Smith is the #1 Catcher on the Player Rater
How He Gets There: Mostly just by being himself. His career high 153 wRC+ last year came in just 110 games which relegated him to C7. His .345 BABIP seems ripe for regression against a .285 career mark, but he hit the ball much better last year to fuel that surge. It wasn’t just a bunch of bleeders and doinkers driving some extra hits in a sub-500 PA sample. I see him holding at least some of those gains while returning to the >500 PA plateau and easily paying off that C9 pricepoint. The competition is a bigger hurdle for this one than Smith’s skill but that’s also why it’s my opening salvo. They’ll get spicier!
Full Line: .285 AVG-25 HR-78 RBI-84 R-1 SB
SS: Nasim Nuñez Steals 40 Bases
How He Gets There: Nuñez doesn’t have an Opening Day role locked in yet and he’s not going to usurp CJ Abrams at SS so 2B is the path and I just don’t believe Luis García Jr. is a real impediment. Nuñez showed out in a 39-game sample (4 HR/9 SB in 92 PA), shifting between SS (19 gms) and 2B (13) while Garcia Jr. posted a 91 wRC+. Plus, Nuñez’s glove is way better. Nuñez has led off during his spring games, but never with Abrams so it’s not the A-lineup [Note: On March 2, the day before this list went live, the Nats put out a lineup featuring the Nuñez/Abrams duo at the top!] The beauty with burners is they don’t need a full season to put up excellent SB numbers. He ran a crazy 24% HR/FB to hit 4 HR and that won’t hold, but with his speed (98th percentile) and 50% GB rate that .232 AVG/.254 BABIP combo seems ripe for a big improvement.
Full Line: .272-7-53-48-43
2B: Ceddanne Rafaela Puts Up a 20 HR/50 SB Season
How He Gets There: A baby step last year gives way to a leap this year as he taps into some power which fuels an OBP surge that allows him run wild on the bases. He’s not one of these speedsters who lives on the ground; he knows how to lift but now needs to start pulling it. This prediction isn’t born out of his early spring dominance, either, his 2B/OF drew my interest in fall drafts and the more I looked into him, the more I feel there’s real upside as a legit fantasy superstar. I don’t mind that he’s cooking in Spring Training, but that would never drive my choice for a prediction.
Full Line: .288-22-91-78-51
SP: Eury Pérez Strikes Out 200 Batters
How He Gets There: This is essentially a call on his health because talent-wise, he’s ready to strikeoutmaxx and fully ascend. Outside of some natural post-TJ hiccups, he looked a lot like the stud we saw in 2023. His STF+ was up seven points from 2023 to 118 and 2nd to only Hunter Greene’s 124 (min. 90 IP). His 94 LOC+ was down four points and reared its ugly head during five 3+ BB outings and yet he still matched his 8% BB from 2023. That suggests to me it was just bouts of command inconsistency which is part of coming back from TJ and after working out the kinks in a 20-start run last year, he’s now poised for a full-scale breakout season, highlighted by a big strikeout total.
Full Line: 211-3.22-1.04-12
1B: Miguel Vargas is a Top 10 First Baseman on the Player Rater
How He Gets There: Vargas finally got an uninterrupted large sample and played well enough with a 101 wRC+ and 16 HRs in 569 PA. I still see more in the tank. He knows the zone well (0.44 BB/K) so the next step is to start pulling his flyballs to transition from 2B-to-HR power. He’s one of 10 guys with a 50%+ FB rate the last three seasons but his 16 HRs are far and away the worst of the group (avg: 37) because of his group-low 43% Pull rate. I’ll be monitoring his spring numbers to see if he starts pulling it more because the HRs will follow if so. A soft factor that will help is expected improvement of the lineup around him, creating more consistent R/RBI opportunities.
Full Line: .254-31-86-74-7
OF: Colton Cowser Puts Up a 35 HR/25 SB Season
How He Gets There: Grinding through an injury-addled season (fracture thumb and ribs, concussion), Cowser had 16 HR/14 SB/.199 AVG/83 wRC+ in 360 PA last year. Despite the struggles, he was a full-time player whenever healthy thanks to a strong glove and loud skills (.190 ISO, 14-for-14 SB). Staying upright is the key here. He’ll need some skill improvement to reach the heights I have here, but health alone will move his baseline up substantially. With his power and batted ball profile, I see upward mobility in that .262 BABIP, too. His 14-for-14 effort on the bases last year and 85% career success rate have me in confident in an easy 20 as he pushes that OBP back up.
Full Line: .258-37-83-79-26
RP: Griffin Jax Logs 20+ SVs for Tampa Bay
How He Gets There: Kevin Cash’s love of closer committees is overstated in the fantasy community. He will use them in the absence of a truly standout option, but he usually has an identifiable A-guy. There are only two years in his career where the Rays didn’t have a 20 SV guy, one of which was 2021 when Diego Castillo got 14 SVs before getting moved at the deadline. The other was 2022, the only true committee season: 5 guys got at least 5 with Jason Adam and Pete Fairbanks tied for the team-high at 8. Fairbanks has logged 25, 23, and 27 SVs the last three seasons. I know I’m spending a lot of time on Cash but that’s because Jax’s skills aren’t in question: 5th K-BB (29%) and tied for 2nd SIERA (2.22) since 2024. Edwin Uceta’s shoulder impingement opens the door for Jax to slide into that A-role and I think he runs with it.
| Year | A-Guy | SVs | SV% |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Boxberger | 41 | 68% |
| 2016 | Colome | 37 | 88% |
| 2017 | Colome | 47 | 89% |
| 2018 | Romo | 25 | 48% |
| 2019 | Pagan | 20 | 43% |
| 2021 | Castillo | 14 | 33% |
| 2022 | 2 guys | 8 | 18% |
| 2023 | Fairbanks | 25 | 56% |
| 2024 | Fairbanks | 23 | 45% |
| 2025 | Fairbanks | 27 | 77% |
Full Line: 23 SVs-2.75 ERA-1.00 WHIP-100 Ks in 70 IP
OF: Jeff McNeil Returns to the .300 Level
How He Gets There: Sacramento serves as a fountain of youth for McNeil. Once a reliable AVG asset, he’s suffered through a .255 BABIP the last two years which has held his AVG to just .241 in 934 PA. Even with that, he’s still a career .305 BABIP but we are four years removed from a .300+ mark (.353 in 2022). It all comes back in 2026! I don’t have a bevy of statistics supporting this one, I’m just buying into a historical track record and fun new park.
Full Line: .306-16-72-66-3
SP: Taj Bradley is a Top 25 Starting Pitcher on the Player Rater
How He Gets There: This is a good pitcher! Coming into last year, he had 27% K and 19% K-BB rates, good for 14th and 27th among 86 pitchers (min. 240 IP) but his 1.7 HR9 saddled him with a 4.75 ERA (compared to a 3.75 SIERA). Uneven skills in 111 IP with Tampa Bay (lower K-BB, but also fewer HRs) came unglued after his trade to Minnesota as skills rebounded (15%) but brought back the homers (1.7), too. I never really hold a post-trade performance against a guy. Bradley throws 97 mph, has a 5-pitch arsenal that gives him four pitches to use against each side. He eschewed the WBC to stay with his still relatively new team and connect more with new manager Derek Shelton and new catcher Victor Caratini (who will share time with Ryan Jeffers), which doesn’t guarantee success but is likely the right move for his development. I think he finds a HR fix this year and pops off!
Full Line: 3.18-1.13-185-10
3B: Royce Lew—NO!!! Stop it! … TOR Gets 70 HRs from their Kazuma Okamoto/Addison Barger combo
How They Get There: Barger still has 3B eligibility for fantasy purposes and will play RF. His raw but explosive power was on display in a platform season (21 HR, 107 wRC+ in 502 PA) and a step in development can take him up a level to full-on star. He has the deep red StatCast power profile we like to drool over with standout EV, HH, and Bat Speed metrics, but the key to that next level will be improving his plate approach, which is fully blue. His 14% BB% in 746 PA at Triple-A is double what we saw in the majors last year and he had an 11% in 1903 MiLB PA. Just give us a 9-10% mark and that improved decision-making can hopefully raise the floor on his cold streaks and make him a force in the lineup ready to drop a mid-30s HR total. He could also just be this year’s Jo Adell (0.22 BB/K, 37 HRs last year) which would work, too!
Okamoto is coming over from the NPB with a prestigious power track record. He is second only to Munetaka Murakami in homers since 2019 with 214. Unlike Barger, he does so with strong plate skills that he’s been honing the last few seasons. He brought his K% down 8 pts from 2023 to 2025 (11%) and putting up an identical 11% BB% with it. His .271 ISO and 1.0 BB/K likely won’t fully translate without any degradation, but I took his projections (.210, 0.5) and looked at seasons in that range (.200-.220 ISO, 0.4-0.6 BB/K) over the last four years. The 27 players who qualified averaged 28 HRs, ranging from 20 to 34. Let’s turn it up a bit to the 0.55-0.75 BB/K and .240-.275 ISO levels and we find nine players who averaged 34 HRs, all reaching at least 30.
Full Lines: KO: .271-32-81-84-1 | AB: .257-38-77-92-4
Die-hard jays fan, love barger and okamato, but damn 70 seems a bit excessive no? I get what you mean by bold
Absolutely! I’m projecting something closer to 50 between ’em, of course, but with Bold Predictions we want something that is certainly possible, but a low enough percentage outcome that it’d be story if it came through.
Like the Jax choice. My only concern is TB might struggle a bit more for wins in that loaded AL East, but Jax seems like a great target to play off of Cash’s perceived dependency on committees.
These aren’t so much bold as they are batshit crazy. I would be thrilled if Cowser reached half those numbers, but he’s one of the worst in the majors over the last two seasons in Called + Swinging Strike percentage.
i mean that’s kiiinda the point, right? catch your eye and think NO WAY, but then hopefully you see why it could happen after reading through (i admittedly didn’t have a great stat case for everyone, like Rafaela is more of a gut feel for example), but ya batshit crazy with a chance – however slim – of coming through.
we’d have chuckled at anyone doing a 60 HR BP for Cal Raleigh last year even w/b2b 30-something seasons. crazy to think a C can run a 60-bomb season, but not completely impossible and voila, dream season for Cal!
To each his own, but I prefer “bold predictions” that are unlikely yet plausible. Cowser hitting 35 home runs and stealing 25 bases is something I cannot envision under any circumstances.
that’s more a you specific thing, though, right? just bc YOU can’t see it doesn’t mean it can’t happen. that you can’t see beyond his 2025 is keeping you from assessing his full talent range, IMO
Even in 2024, Cowser’s xSLG, average exit velocity, and hard hit percentage were more good than great. Meanwhile, his xBA, launch angle sweet spot percentage, swinging strike percentage, called strike percentage, and overall strikeout rate were terrible. And again, that’s only looking at his best season. If you look at his overall major league numbers including 2023 and 2025, the picture gets much worse.
If Cowser had 70 raw power then I could see projecting that kind of home run output despite his swing and miss, but he doesn’t. Now throw in the playing time questions since he lost his left field spot as a result of the Taylor Ward trade, and to me this prediction doesn’t even have a 1% chance of occurring. But it’s your column so you’re free to make whatever predictions you want.
I dunno, man, just seems like you’re not open to looking beyond what a player has already done. He didn’t lose anything PT-wise. He’s the starting CF now with Ward in tow and Mullins gone. And I think even you know you’re splitting the smallest of hairs to say you could see a 35 HR proj. w/70 raw power grade but at 60 it’s just impossible? Seriously? C’monnn!!
I have given more of a rationale for doubting your prediction than you have given for making it. It seems like your entire argument is “He might do it, who knows.“
As an Orioles fan, I can assure you that this is completely false. Cowser still has a chance to win the job in center field, but he is currently behind Taveras, who has much more experience at the position and has been better so far this spring.
There is a massive difference between 70 raw power and 60 raw power. That is not splitting hairs in the slightest. A player who is one of the worst in the majors in swinging strike percentage and called strike percentage needs to have elite exit velocities to reach 35 home runs in a season.
In fact, I’ll make the bold prediction that Cowser’s 24 in 2024 will be his career high.
Also an O’s fan, and I’m just here to say you’re waayyy off base regarding CF. Firstly, we’re talking about Spring Training (Iverson just popped into my head! lol) Paul made some good points initially about how banged up CC was last year. There’s just no way he’s anywhere close to losing the CF gig vs RHPs. He will sit vs most lefties though I reckon.
Roster Resource reflects this as well, but oddly, they don’t even highlight Taveras as the short-side platoon (seems like they think it’s Jeremiah Jackson, which I’d doubt).
For non-O’s fans, just realize there’s 3 types of Cowser fans in Birdland: the majority are level-headed and think he needs another year or 2 to see if he can get better vs offspeed stuff and moderate his K/BB%; the minority are the ones who love him, sit in his ‘Corner’ of the park and wear his gear — but there’s a growing (and noisy) segment that are full-on Cow-haters, like our friend JD.
Let’s just see how it plays out (personally I hope he trends up towards Paul’s dreams!)
I don’t hate Cowser in the slightest. I am realistic about his strengths and weaknesses. He’s a great left fielder who makes below average contact and takes far too many strikes.
I think you caught lightning in a bottle with Rafaela. Rafaela is the official Jarren Duran knock off available 50+ picks later. Fact: when Raf was required to play 2nd, he hit.132 with 0 hrs in 78 abs. Playing OF, he hit .268 with 16 hrs. This should be an easy 20/20 with a .260 + BA.
Interesting that you thought these were more bold as you went down the list. I think they really vary as you go. Here’s my handicapping of them:
There is no world in Cowser gets 35 hrs. He is not even an every day player. He’ll be lucky to get 20 and since he will probably only play 100 games more like 15.
Hm, why would he only play 100 games? He played 153 in 2024 and hit 24 HRs. Even if he is platooned, he’ll play way more than 100 gms barring injury. There aren’t that many lefty SPs. It’ll obviously take development to reach the mark I put forward, but it’s far from impossible given what he’s done in this career thus far
Taylor Ward took Cowser’s spot in left field. Colton is now competing in center with Leody Taveras and Dylan Beavers, with Enrique Bradfield expected to come up and take that position at some point this summer.
nah, he played more in CF than LF in 2025, he was always penciled in as the starting CF and there’s absolutely no universe where Leody mf’n Taveras is gonna take his job out of spring.
I get that you think Cowser sucks, and you’re free to that opinion, but it’s not steeped in truth, it’s more of a subjective take on a guy who grinded through an injury-riddled season
Cowser played center after Mullins was traded because the team had no other options at the position.
Taveras winning the starting job is orders of magnitude more likely than Cowser hitting 35 home runs and stealing 25 bases. Dylan Beavers is also in that mix, by the way.
This is a disingenuous response given that I pointed out Cowser’s flaws even from his best season in 2024.
Dude, give it up. It’s a bold prediction, not a projection. If it were a projection, Paul would say, “He strikes out too much and will hit.240 with 20 bombs and 15 SB” and we’d all be bored. He hits the ball reasonably hard and in the air and has some speed. A 35/25 is far from insanely out there
His prediction isn’t based on analytics or a swing change or Statcast data or anything at all other than “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if this happened?”
I like reading bold predictions because they usually contain interesting information that at least gives a reason why something improbable yet possible might happen. Unfortunately, this piece didn’t contain any of that. Then he got really defensive in the comments when I provided data explaining why his prediction is “insanely out there.”
Who had Adell or Ward or Greene going for 35 last year? (With Busch and Grisham just missing)
Career high amongst those 5 before last year was 25
Paul’s bold prediction (again, not projection) isn’t as far out there as you want it to be
All of those guys except Ward have more game power than Cowser and didn’t have the same playing time concerns.
I am an Orioles fan. I would be beyond thrilled if Paul’s prediction ended up being correct. But because I am an Orioles fan and have watched Cowser play for three seasons, I know that Paul’s prediction is nonsense.
LOL… “nonsense” bc you don’t like it. Sure, guy. 🤡
Using the clown emoji isn’t a particularly mature response, but I understand that you’re embarrassed after I provided sources proving that you have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about.
Cowser played CF bc he can handle it and they have no one else worth a damn. Taveras can play CF defense but can’t hit (any should-be contender putting Leody in CF everyday might as well punt on the season) and Beavers is not in contention for CF at all. Beavers didn’t play any CF in the majors last yr and has all of 1 ST start there, he has *ZERO* chance of being the OD CF barring multiple unforeseen injuries.
I know Cowser’s flaws, I looked at his profile before writing. They’re obvious. The prediction suggests he develops beyond them into something else. You’re completely stuck entirely on the guy he’s been.
Cowser can play center but he is not particularly good at it, unlike left field. Even in Colton’s one good season back in 2024, he had the fourth worst Called + Swinging Strike percentage in the major leagues. His Z-Contact% was also sixth worst on the team. Once again, this is looking at his best season rather than his three year career as a whole.
From MASN:
“Spring training is such a great spot to kind of get guys exposed to different areas, so for him to be able to go out in center field and get at least comfortable with it is gonna be big for him and for us,” manager Craig Albernaz said on Monday. “And also, spring training, we talked about the way at-bats line up, so it just kind of happened that way.”
Asked again about Beavers yesterday, Albernaz said the club intends to move him around the outfield, which obviously includes center.
For the record, Beavers has made two starts in center, one against the Rays and another against the Braves. Taveras has started five games in center while Cowser has also started five games in center.
I’m glad I wasn’t in the middle of taking a sip when I read the “Royce Lew-” line
A big reason for the drop in Jeff McNeil’s BABIP is a change in approach, to hit (and pull) more flyballs, and I don’t see that changing. His Pull AIR% went from 15.7% in 2022 (his last great season) to 26.9% (!) in 2025. Trouble is, he doesn’t have a ton of juice (“Hey McNeil, you got no POWAH!” IYKYK), despite adding a couple MPH of bat speed last year, and 97mph fly balls tend not to leave the yard at Citi. But in Sacramento…
you may be right and the actual BP would’ve been to tab him for 30 HRs but like you said, he doesn’t really have the juice to live in the air even when he’s pulling. i could’ve expounded more, but i am indeed hoping for an approach change back to the low-mid 40s for GB rate. a couple early season HRs could make him sell out for the pop and we get the worst of both worlds – another meager avg and just 15-18 HRs. Jeff, let everyone else rake bombs and drive you in from 1st/2nd after our 1B or 2B!!
Enjoyed these, thanks for sharing.
THIS is how you do a Bold Predictions article, ladies and gentlemen!
Your batting average projection for Nasim Nunez is significantly bolder than predicting he will steal 40 bases. He hasn’t even come close to sniffing .272 thru the minors. You are projecting him to hit 50 pts above his projections lol
He hit .254 in AAA last yr which I would say is at least sniffing around something in the .270s. The difference between that and .272 is 9 hits over 500 AB. For a speedster who can also get some leg singles, that’s not a crazy leap.