Reviewing Eno Sarris’ 10 Bold Predictions for 2014

It was a decent season. Won 25% of my leagues. Placed in the top third in 58%, bottom third in 17%. When you’ve got 12 leagues, mostly with sharps, it’s tough to expect much more than this, but I do. Especially since all my pitching staffs were so good. Gotta be better with hitting.

And you’ll see that I might have gotten over-exuberant with my hitting predictions. With the run environment tanking every year, maybe it’s all about safe plays (if they exist) in the lineup. Which is tough on me because I love upside.

So let’s look at the tale of the tape. How did I do on my bold predictions? I have a feeling I’m going to get a sixer of good adult soda from Jay Long of Razzball…

1) Jason Kipnis will go 30-30.
Instead of just making Kipnis the top-rated second baseman, I tried to be bolder and paint Kipnis into 30-30 pants. Turns out those pants were a little tight. Dude hurt his oblique and never found the power again. .240/6/22 isn’t even really close in any way either. Good news is that, even in fewer plate appearances, Kipnis kept up his stolen base attempts. We can still project him for 20+ next year, despite the way stolen bases age. And me personally? I’m going to chalk up the power outage to the injury. Maybe you’ll even see Kipnis on my bold predictions again next year. I’ve had success doubling-down in the past.

0-for-1.

2) The Astros will produce a mixed-league-relevant starting pitcher by the end of the year.
“We didn’t rank a single Astros pitcher in the Consensus Top 115 that we put out last week.” That’s how I started my prediction, so at least it wasn’t super bland. And y’all know how much I liked Dallas Keuchel as a sleeper based on the new breaking pitch, so I was more specific in my writeup than I was in the prediction. Collin McHugh, though, that guy was a surprise. Throw high in the zone with a four-seamer in Houston of all places? Of course that was the fuel to a breakout.

1-for-2.

3) Brad Miller will out-earn Ian Desmond.
For a while it looked like Ian Desmond was doing his best to make this a close one despite Brad Miller almost sucking his way out of a job permanently. Though Desmond was a little bit batting-average risky, he managed to get to his customary 20/20 platform. That provided top-three shortstop value. Brad Miller… did not provide top-three shortstop value. In fact, with a .221 batting average, 10 homers and four stolen bases, he barely provided top-thirty shortstop value. The projections were all wrong, and when that happens, my rankings are going to look like poop. But finding out when that might happen is the tough part.

1-for-3.

4) One of these pitchers will be a top-75 mixed league pitcher: Carlos Carrasco, Tyler Skaggs or Garrett Richards.
Um. So. This one came within a hair of getting bonus points for all three being top 75. Of course, Skaggs didn’t strike out quite as many batters as I’d hoped once I heard his velocity was back. But he did find his command and could have improved his ERA some if given more of a chance. As it was, he was a useful pitcher. And the other two? Top 25, probably, once we look backwards. Carrasco didn’t quite have the quantity, but Richards was great all the way until doom came for his knee.

2-for-4 with bonus points.

5) Nobody will steal 50+ bases this year.
Hey! Let’s just be spectacularly wrong when we’re wrong, huh? Wouldn’t that be fun. Because I thought Dee Gordon was done, Ben Revere wouldn’t get on base enough to steal 50, and Billy Hamilton had a super low floor that might include the minor leagues. I didn’t even consider Jose Altuve. And that quartet came within one Revere stolen base of four 50-SB seasons. But even with these superlative performances, the league only stole 70 more bases than they did last year. It’s unclear if there’s a sea change underway, and we’ll see more stolen bases again in the future. It is clear that I whiffed on the speedsters.

2-for-5 and let’s take those bonus points away.

6) Anthony Rizzo will be a top-five first baseman this year.
I’m glad my competitor vetted this one and called it bold enough because I felt it was rock solid and in my head wasn’t sure it was bold at all. Well, turns out I was wrong. At least by Yahoo’s numbers, Rizzo was only the 8th-best first baseman. If you push Miguel Cabrera and Todd Frazier to third base, and Jose Bautista to the outfield, though, he sneaks in. So we’ll have to see how our own ranks treat that bunch. Still a great season. Probably a good bet to move ahead of old men Albert Pujols and Adrian Gonzalez once the offense around him is any better. 78 RBI is not impressive, but not really his fault.

2-for-6 with a grumble.

7) A new mixed-league relevant catcher will be born and it won’t be a top-50 prospect.
I didn’t actually leave it this vague. I pointed to Hank Conger and Devin Mesoraco as the best bets to be new mixed league catchers, just because it takes so long to get regular play as a catcher. Tough position, but look at post-hype guys once they’ve had some seasoning. So maybe next year’s crop will include Travis D’Arnaud or Yasmani Grandal. That line of reasoning really worked for Mesoraco, who was the third-best backstop in Yahoo’s estimation.

3-for-7.

8) Brian Dozier will figure out his pop-up problems and have a huge year.
Because of how the Rizzo thing worked out, I’m taking this one. Yes, maybe Dozier didn’t figure out that infield fly problem. In fact, he put up the worst pop up rate of his career. Oh well. Didn’t matter. You gotta call a top-half of his position year, with 23 homers and 21 stolen bases, a huge year, don’t you? Really should have put a more clear benchmark here, but I’m taking it. So there.

4-for-8.

9) The Twins will produce a third mixed-league relevant position player.
Hey! This one did not fail! It was unbold, perhaps. But was it? This team was supposed to be pretty bad. And I thought Joe Mauer might even get hurt and miss the cut himself — he ended up barely in the top 150 and will be an even worse bet next year as a first baseman only. Brian Dozier was a top thirty hitter. But Danny Santana snuck into the top 75 with his shortstop eligiblity! Once the batting average on balls in play regresses, he’s sure to dissapoint a lot of people next year, but who cares. It was fun while it lasted. The surprise guy was Trevor Plouffe, who did just enough against lefties to join the top 100 hitters. It was Oswaldo Arcia sneaking into the top 175 that I was banking on. 20 homers from the 23-year-old bodes well. While Plouffe may lose his job to Sano next year, and Santana has a lot of regression coming, it’s Arcia that’s your best bet for upside in next year’s drafts.

5-for-9 with a wink.

10) B.J. Upton will be a fine fifth outfielder in mixed leagues.
Yuck. I said BJU would be a top-60 outfielder and instead he ended up in the eighties, with an overall ranking in the 400s. He still hit 12 homers and stole 20 bases, but it wasn’t pretty. And it was so bad that he’s not going to be a good bet for better next year, because his team is shopping him and may need to demote him to a backup, as they did in the latter half of the season.

5-for-10 with a sigh.

That’s my best showing ever. And though there were some vague predictions, most of them had a benchmark number associated with them and were easy to evaluate.

The boldness, though. That one’s tough. Too bold and they aren’t in any way useful to the reader. Not bold enough and they just become predictions like any other.

How did the sauce taste to you?