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Kyle Bishop kicks off RotoBaller's Bold Predictions series with 10 outside-the-box calls for the 2020 fantasy baseball season.
This will be my sixth season with RotoBaller, and consequently, my sixth time participating in this bold predictions series. Over that time, I've amassed a fairly strong record with bold predictions, generally clocking in with a success rate of 30 percent. I correctly predicted Bryce Harper's MVP campaign in 2015 and Kirby Yates leading the league in saves last season, and in between had a nice run in calling starting pitcher busts (Julio Teheran, Sonny Gray, and Aaron Sanchez in successive seasons).
I've also had my share of embarrassing misses, which is an occupational hazard in this line of work. After all, if you're not looking foolish on at least a few of these every year, are you really being B O L D? Still, were it possible to do so, I'd like to wipe from the record my doubts regarding Jose Altuve and Javier Baez, and the multiple times that I drank the Delino DeShields Kool-Aid.
But it's time to look forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.
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Bo Bichette outearns Fernando Tatis in 5x5
Tatis took the league by storm last year, hitting .317/.379/.590 with 22 home runs, 16 stolen bases, and elite run production in just 84 games before injury cut his season short. That performance has fantasy owners reaching for him in the front half of the second round, but there are plenty of reasons to expect regression in his sophomore season.
Bichette was pretty great as a rookie himself; in 46 games, he hit .311/.358/.571 with 11 homers and four steals in only 46 contests. He's projected to bat leadoff in a sneaky-good Blue Jays lineup and currently carries a nice ADP of 69, over 50 picks later than his fellow legacy phenom.
Dinelson Lamet finishes outside the top-75 starting pitchers
The hype for Lamet is out of control. The strikeouts are great, as is that wipeout slider. But the 27-year-old desperately needs an effective third pitch, because his fastball will continue to get absolutely clobbered otherwise. He gives up a ton of home runs and walks, has never pitched more than 153 innings in a season, and his career ratios (4.37 ERA/1.25 WHIP) are uninspiring even in the current environment.
Some folks look at Lamet and see a guy who can carry their fantasy rotation. I look at him and see a deeply flawed arm who may not even merit a roster spot in 12-teamers.
C.J. Cron puts up 35 HR and 100 RBI
Cron was well on his way to a career year before an injury torpedoed his second half. While he won't have nearly as dynamic a supporting cast as he did in Minnesota last season, the 30-year-old is slotted for cleanup duty with the Tigers. Even bad teams present plenty of opportunities to their middle of the order bats, which is part of why players on lousy rosters routinely turn a profit for fantasy owners who invest in them.
He's averaged 27 homers and 76 RBI in the last two years (his only seasons as a regular starter), so this prediction requires a significant step forward on his part. Good thing his barrel rate has improved in each of the last three years (up to 15 percent last year, seventh-best in baseball) and his expected slugging percentage in 2019 was 80 points higher than his actual mark.
Craig Kimbrel leads MLB in saves
On the one hand, it doesn't feel all that bold to predict that a guy who averaged over 40 saves per season from 2011-18 (and pretty much always posted microscopic ratios in the process) will lead the league in that particular statistic. On the other, Kimbrel was bad enough last year that he's been the 12th reliever off the board in drafts this spring despite that track record of success.
I'm willing to write off 2019 as just a weird and unlucky blip - juiced ball or no, Kimbrel isn't going to allow a home run on 36 percent of his fly balls again. He'll also have the benefit of a normal routine this time around, knowing where he'll be playing and going through a regular spring training, as opposed to having to twist in the wind until midseason like he did last year.
None of the four Astros being drafted in the top 50 returns top-50 value
That'd be Alex Bregman, Jose Altuve, Yordan Alvarez, and George Springer. While I'm of the opinion that there is a sizable gap between the advantage the average fan believes sign-stealing confers and the impact it actually makes, that plays a role in the thinking behind this - not merely the disappearance of that edge, but the psychological toll of the scandal and its fallout. But there are other, more quantifiable reasons for concern on each player.
Bregman was among the hitters who benefited most from the juiced ball last season, per research by The Athletic's Owen Poindexter. Springer is likely to see plenty of regression in the power department himself. Meanwhile, Altuve just posted the worst in-zone contact and swinging strike rates of his career, and Alvarez is dealing with soreness in both knees this spring. All four players should still be productive, but they won't reach the same heights as they did in seasons past.
Dylan Carlson, Trent Grisham, and Franchy Cordero are top 50 outfielders
None of these guys are being selected in the top 80 at their position based on NFBC drafts over the last 30 days, and they have a grand total of 456 MLB plate appearances between them. But as prospects, all three displayed the sort of pop/speed combo that fantasy owners crave. Grisham and Cordero are both slated to open the season as starters in the revamped Padres outfield.
Carlson will have to work his way into a role, but the competition isn't exactly stiff - Tyler O'Neill's severe allergy to contact makes him especially vulnerable, and the strongest argument for continuing to roll with Dexter Fowler is how much they're paying him, not his actual talent at this point.
David Price and Corey Kluber are top-25 starting pitchers
Price's ratios took a hit last season, and he's averaged fewer than 120 innings in the last three campaigns. Still, seeing his ADP fall to 180 this spring just feels like an excellent buying opportunity. After all, he's only a year removed from posting 16 wins, rock-solid ratios (3.58/1.14) and a strikeout per inning, and despite his career-worst ratios last year, he actually had the highest strikeout rate of his career. The trade to Los Angeles is also a boon to his value in more ways than one.
He moves to a friendlier home park and division, gets to face pitchers instead of a DH, and many NL hitters will have had limited exposure to him in game action since he's been an AL lifer to this point. Kluber's still going inside the top 100 picks and is mainly included here to 1) make it clear that I'm betting on a rebound and 2) increase the degree of difficulty for hitting on this prediction.
Nick Madrigal leads MLB in stolen bases
As of this moment, Madrigal isn't even projected to break camp with the White Sox. Obviously, the bet here is that he seizes control of second base from Leury Garcia in short order and runs (no pun intended) with the job. The 23-year-old has no pop to speak of, but he does offer an extreme contact profile that allowed him to hit .311/.377/.414 across three levels last season.
Madrigal has made 705 plate appearances in the minors and gone down on strikes just 21 times. That level of contact ability should help him reach base often enough to stick in the lineup, and he ought to get the green light regularly.
Shohei Ohtani returns first-round value in daily leagues
Never before in the history of fantasy baseball have we been presented with a player like Ohtani - one who can potentially provide positive value in nine of the 10 standard categories. We got a glimpse of what that might look like in his first season, when he hit .285/.361/.564 with 22 homers, 10 stolen bases, and 120 R+BI in just 367 plate appearances and went 4-2 with a 3.31 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, and 63 strikeouts in 52 innings.
Now that he's fully recovered from Tommy John surgery, the stage is set for 450 plate appearances and 120 innings - and if he can produce on both sides of the ball like he has previously, the sky is the limit.
Peter Alonso hits fewer than 30 home runs
Here's where I would normally lay out some sort of statistical case or reasoned argument, but there really isn't one. Projection systems do see a fair amount of pullback for Alonso in his second season - after all, it's really difficult to maintain the kind of production he managed as a rookie - but all have him comfortably clearing 40 bombs anyway. Statcast absolutely loves the guy.
This is pretty much just placing trust in one of the precious few immutable laws of the universe: LOLMets. What could possibly be more apropos to this ancient ethos than their superstar slugger inexplicably seeing his HR total drop by ~50 percent?
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