The other day, my wife asked me what my next column was going to be about, and I told her it would be my annual Bold Predictions piece. She wanted to contribute a prediction, and when I asked her what it would be, I realized it would be the perfect addition to this column.
So the first-ever Bold Prediction for Mary Beth Melchior is this: J.T. Realmuto will break the all-time single-season record for home runs for a catcher.
Read the rest of this entry »
I used 10% Yahoo ownership as the cutoff for these selections. With these players available in nearly all leagues, boosting your middle-infield production isn’t as dire a situation as it may seem.
Derek Dietrich (9% owned) – With Dee Gordon suspended through July, Dietrich’s got a stranglehold on the second-base job in Miami for the next two months. For the most part, he’s been batting leadoff, although he’s hit in the No. 3 spot for the last two days, to accommodate a red-hot Ichiro Suzuki in the leadoff spot. Regardless, he’s hitting in the top third of the lineup, with a .293/.400/.485 slash.
The 26-year-old’s home-run power hasn’t shown up yet this year — with just two in 120 PA — but he’s got seven doubles and three triples. Don’t be fooled by that paltry ‘2’ in the HR column, because Dietrich has plenty of pop to get the ball over the fence. While his .355 BABIP suggests likely regression in his AVG, those of you in OBP leagues can reap the benefits of his 10.0% walk rate — and the fact that he’s strangely adept at being hit by pitches.
Most add/drop questions I get on Twitter ask from the perspective of which player has the highest overall value. My response generally requests additional information, usually about what the team’s categorical needs are. The lack of this information in the original query could sometimes be due to the fact that it’s hard to ask a question and provide background info in 140 characters, but it seems that more often the categorical needs of an owner’s team are not a major consideration.
I’m tasked with writing about shortstops on Mondays, so I wanted to look at the shortstops owned in less than half of ESPN.com leagues who can best help you address categorical needs. I’ll only be addressing home runs, steals and batting average as there would be some overlap were I to discuss runs and RBI separately. I’ll try to list a player owned in less than 50 percent of leagues and one owned in less than 10 percent of leagues to try and help out deeper league players. Read the rest of this entry »
Too big of a reach on the title?
As I tend to do on Sundays when considering a topic for my Monday post on shortstops, I was perusing the leaderboards and settled on Brad Miller as today’s topic. What caught my eye with Miller was that he has the lowest BABIP of any healthy shortstop with a wRC+ north of 100. Read the rest of this entry »
I am a chronic off-season Mets rosterbater. Many of my potential Mets trade Tweets are far from rational. Some have included proposals for Troy Tulowitzki, which then leads to trading Daniel Murphy in order to open second base for a long-term competition between Wilmer Flores and Dilson Herrera.
Woof! That’s all there is to say about my preseason bold predictions as a whole. The idea was to take players at each position that I had ranked just outside starter territory in 12-team leagues who I thought could beat my ranking. Let’s break them down one by one.
Catcher – Josmil Pinto will be a top ten fantasy catcher.
The biggest problem with my Pinto projection was that I projected him for 450 PA. Pinto didn’t come close to that, finishing with just 194 PA because the Twins gave Kurt Suzuki 502 PA. The one thing my projection did get right was Pinto’s power as he hit 12 home runs in limited work. Had he maintained that pace and received the 450 PA I projected, he would have hit 16 home runs, which would have easily surpassed the 12 I projected. Pinto’s power would make him interesting if he could get regular playing time, but Suzuki is signed through 2016 in Minnesota. Read the rest of this entry »
At a time when call-ups – those who arrived prior to September as well as the gaggle of them that joined major league rosters this month – pique the interest of many fantasy baseball owners, a player who reclaims playing time can be overlooked.
Not all call-ups will be exciting options just because they’re new to roto or head-to-head managers anyway. Some are players whom folks have seen fail a time or three. Those players are unlikely to capture imaginations, although an automatic dismissal is often hasty.
It’s a “dudes who have been dropped in a lot of mixed leagues” edition. These two have disappointed in different ways – one with fairly low expectations, one with optimistic forecasts – but both of their outcomes have been roughly equal in terms of suckitude. The signs, lately, both performance-wise and in terms of team dynamics, have given fantasy owners reasons for cautious optimism going forward, though.
My bold predictions article from last year was summarily found to be not bold. The very first commenter said it wasn’t bold and 63 people gave that comment a thumbs up. Another commenter sarcastically chided me saying “You mean Rickie Weeks won’t have (a) career worst season again?” As it turns out, Weeks did have his career worst full season according to wRC+. Not sure if that makes me or the commenter dumb. Probably both.
What I did in last year’s bold predictions was take guys from each position that weren’t being drafted as starters who I thought would be starters. Only three of my ten predictions came true, which is the same batting average Eno thinks is normal for these bold predictions articles. Of course that could just mean that I’m so bad at this that I couldn’t get more than 3/10 right with such obvious calls.
But I’m getting back on the horse this year with a slightly different saddle. The mistake I made last year was discussing players I had ranked as starters in my preseason ranks. This year I’ll be discussing guys that I have ranked just outside starter territory that I think could end up beating my projection and ranking. This means that all players discussed will have an ADP that is, on average, lower than that of the players I discussed last year (all ADP from ESPN). I guess technically that makes the predictions more bold.
If you still don’t think the predictions are bold enough, sorry. My real goal here is to simply identify some guys around the diamond that I think are undervalued in drafts. The ‘bold’ in the title is there on mandate from the higher-ups. If it was up to me, this post would be titled something like ‘Undervalued Players at Each Position.’ If you happen to think some or all of the predictions are actually bold, that’s all the better. Read the rest of this entry »
Let’s face it, even in leagues of 10 to 12 teams, the waiver wire is looking pretty bleak. Every once in a while you get to fight for some hit, young rookie like we all did for Christian Yelich the other day, but beyond that, it’s about fill-ins and stopgaps as opposed to long-term solutions. The middle infield is particularly ugly on this front so you have to dig deep. You still won’t find that perfect guy you’re looking for, but you might find someone who will stick for the duration of the season such as… Read the rest of this entry »