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After joining the RotoBaller team in late 2020, I was graciously allowed to write a "Bold Predictions" piece for the 2021 MLB season, you can read back on that here.
It was a fantastically fun year covering fantasy baseball on this website, but now it's time to get the gavel out begin judging some of my performances.
I tried to be quite bold with these predictions, really wanting to put my chips on the table. At the time I was thinking I would be pretty lucky to get three or four of these right, so let's review!
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Bold Prediction #1: More SP Reach 200 IP than in 2019
I was pretty hesitant on all of the business about pitchers not throwing many innings this year. I resolved not to let it change my rankings at all and just move forward drafting the best pitchers without bothering to speculate about their inning counts.
In 2019, 15 pitchers reached 200 innings with Justin Verlander pacing the field at 223 and Shane Bieber, Trevor Bauer, and Gerrit Cole breaking 210. This year, only four pitchers broke 200 with a max of 213 from Zach Wheeler. Only three additional pitchers broke the 190 mark. I was very much wrong about this one, but I still think the process of drafting without trying the impossible speculation about inning counts was the right way to go.
Result: Wrong
Bold Prediction #2: No Closer Earns 30 Saves
I just thought the teams that would win enough games to have a 30+ save guy all found themselves in closer-by-committee situations. It turned out that nine different closers reached 30 saves, with Mark Melancon, Liam Hendriks, Kenley Jansen, and Will Smith going over 35. If you drafted a top-ranked closer, you did pretty well.
Result: Not close
Bold Prediction #3: Three Marlins Pitchers End Up as Top-30 SP
I was very bullish on Sandy Alcantara, Pablo Lopez, and Sixto Sanchez. Injuries ruined everything for Sixto Sanchez and they took a significant chunk out of Pablo's season as well, so this prediction fell quite flat. Extra shame on me for not even talking about the Marlins' actual best pitcher, Trevor Rogers.
Result: Very wrong
Bold Prediction #4: NL Central Pitchers Show Out - Corbin Burnes Win Cy Young
I was very much into NL Central pitchers because of the insane amount of talent in that division as well as a lighter burden on the schedules. I specifically took this to the end that Burnes would win a Cy Young, and right now it looks like that's a possibility. Walker Buehler may end up taking it home, but Burnes will get a significant number of votes.
Results: Yet to be determined, but a good prediction
Bold Prediction #5: Joey Gallo Walks Less, Strikes Out Less, Leads Majors in HR by far
He instead set a new career-high with an 18% walk rate, although he did slightly cut back the strikeouts to 34.6% (career average 36.9%). The idea behind this was that if Gallo just swung the bat a little bit more his insane power and launch profile would propel him to leading the league in homers.
Gallo does not read my articles about him, and he did not swing more this year. In fact, his 40.2% swing rate was the lowest of his career, and he posted another good but not elite home run total of 38.
Result: Completely wrong
Bold Prediction #6: Corey Kluber and Jameson Taillon Stay Healthy and Dominate
I wanted to roll the dice on a couple of solid arms that had just had trouble staying on the field over the last few seasons. In the case of Kluber, he actually did dominate. Okay, well he dominated that one start when he threw a no-hitter. He certainly did not stay healthy totaling just 80 innings in the regular season. As for Taillon, he did stay healthy - he just didn't dominate. He threw 144 innings but his 4.30 ERA and 1.21 WHIP didn't help your fantasy team very much.
Result: NOPE
Bold Prediction #7: Shohei Ohtani Wins an MVP Award
DING DING DING! The award hasn't been given out yet, but he is the hands-down favorite for it, and even if they do go the way of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Ohtani's numbers are very much worth the award, so I'm taking a massive victory lap on this one.
Result: Resounding Success
Bold Prediction #8: Shane Bieber Falls Flat
This one looks good by the headline, but it wasn't exactly right. I did not predict this because I didn't think he would hold up health-wise, I just thought he was being over-drafted after a 60-game Cy Young season. To my credit, he really was not pitching like a Cy Young winner before the injury either, so I'm taking the win here.
Result: Right, but for slightly the wrong reason
Bold Prediction #9: Byron Buxton Goes Nuts
I specifically said Buxton would have a 30-30 season while staying pretty healthy. He did not stay healthy (61 games), but while he was on the field, you could make the case that he did indeed go nuts. He hit 19 homers and stole nine bases in his 60 games. If we extrapolate that over 162 games (a ridiculous thing to do, but I'm trying to make myself look good here), that's a 51 homer and 24 steal pace! He went nuts!
Result: Kind of right, but actually super wrong
Bold Prediction #10: All Three Top-Ranked Fantasy Catchers Finish Outside of Top 10
The three I was referring to J.T. Realmuto, Salvador Perez, and Will Smith. I couldn't have been much more wrong on this one, because these three were all in the top-four. Perez was one of the top hitters in the league period, so if you drafted a catcher from this trio you did pretty well.
Result: Catastrophically wrong
So all-in-all this was a pretty bad showing. Even being generous, I was only even somewhat right on four of these, and that's being pretty gracious. The Ohtani prediction was the only truly and fully correct one, with some "pretty much" right calls with Burnes and Bieber going their separate ways. We'll be back next year to try again! I hope everybody survives the offseason, thanks for following along with me!
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