This article is part of our Collette Calls series.
I love late March. It's a time of year where real baseball gets closer and most fantasy drafts happen. I had Tout Wars two weekends ago, my new local home league last weekend and this week I go back up to New York to serve as the auctioneer for a super-secret-double-probation fantasy league. This time last year, I was unemployed and could do as much spring training, writing and drafting as I wished. This year, that is definitely not the case.
For those who don't know, throughout the week, I work with schools and technology to enable learning in a changing landscape. My geographic responsibilities span from the mighty Mississippi to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and all points in between. When I am not in my home office with my crack staff of a greyhound and beagle, I'm in an airplane or an airport doing what needs to be done. I wouldn't trade it for the world as I do truly love my job and helping infuse more technology into our schools, but this month's schedule has been rather unforgiving to my baseball habit. I've had to drop out of two leagues due to scheduling conflicts, and I'm behind entering the offline draft results from the FWSA league that I sponsored because I've barely had time to breathe lately. I still haven't seen Wrestlemania, and worse yet, I can't even order MLB The Show 15 because I know if I do, I will drop everything else I am
I love late March. It's a time of year where real baseball gets closer and most fantasy drafts happen. I had Tout Wars two weekends ago, my new local home league last weekend and this week I go back up to New York to serve as the auctioneer for a super-secret-double-probation fantasy league. This time last year, I was unemployed and could do as much spring training, writing and drafting as I wished. This year, that is definitely not the case.
For those who don't know, throughout the week, I work with schools and technology to enable learning in a changing landscape. My geographic responsibilities span from the mighty Mississippi to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and all points in between. When I am not in my home office with my crack staff of a greyhound and beagle, I'm in an airplane or an airport doing what needs to be done. I wouldn't trade it for the world as I do truly love my job and helping infuse more technology into our schools, but this month's schedule has been rather unforgiving to my baseball habit. I've had to drop out of two leagues due to scheduling conflicts, and I'm behind entering the offline draft results from the FWSA league that I sponsored because I've barely had time to breathe lately. I still haven't seen Wrestlemania, and worse yet, I can't even order MLB The Show 15 because I know if I do, I will drop everything else I am doing to consume it in its entirety.
I bring all of this up because I have been working on this piece the last few days while on planes going from Charlotte to places like Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelpha and, most recently, Memphis. In this piece, I make 30 predictions for the upcoming fantasy season singling out a hitter and a pitcher for each team that I feel strongly about one way or the other. I put out this disclaimer because I don't want it to be misconstrued as a straight lift off the 50 Bold Predictions piece that my friend Tristan Cockcroft produced yesterday. I have not even read it because I purposefully ignored the content once I saw the title so I wouldn't unintentionally lift any ideas. If any of my 30 things below are a match of his, it is purely coincidental.
Here are my 30 AL predictions; the NL piece will run Thursday.
Baltimore Orioles
•J.J. Hardy fails to hit double-digit home runs for a second straight season. He hit 22 or more from 2011 to 2013, but hit just nine last season despite coming to the plate 569 times. His front shoulder is still not 100 percent and front shoulder issues are bad for hitting with power. I'm running away from him and grabbing shares of Everth Cabrera.
• 6-1 with a 2.33 ERA and a 1.01 WHIP -- that's how Chris Tillman finished the 2014 season. He will finish 2015 in the top 20 for overall pitchers in terms of fantasy value.
Boston Red Sox
• I can't slow down the Mookie Betts hype train. I think he out-earns Dustin Pedroia this year. When I was out in the Arizona Fall League in 2013, a friend who scouts out there told me Betts was the best player in the league and I needed to pick up as many shares of him as possible in drafts in 2014. That was 16 months ago; scouts are great at their jobs.
•Joe Kelly won't win the Cy Young (as he predicted during the offseason), but he uses his new four-seam fastball to double his 2014 strikeout total of 66 and provides nice end-game value.
New York Yankees
•Brett Gardner leads all Yankees batters in fantasy value in 2015 and goes 20/20 and hits .285. Let everyone else chase Jacoby Ellsbury in the top 25 while you grab the value 50-plus picks later.
• Nate Eovaldi, leveraging his re-tooled splitter, has the best profit (Tout Wars/LABR price compared to final Roto $) on the entire staff. He is still rather cheap in auctions and there late in drafts. Profit!
Tampa Bay Rays
•Kevin Kiermaier ends up with more roto production in 2015 than Desmond Jennings. Both players have their flaws at the plate, but Kiermaier's comes against lefties, and there aren't too many lefties in the division. Jennings struggles against righties and righties that work with velocity up in the zone. There are quite a few of them in the division.
• Three pitchers on this staff end up with at least five saves, and one of them is not Brad Boxberger. Boxberger became a Scott Boras client during the offseason, so there is little hope the team will sign the reliever to any kind of pre-free agent contract. The only way to control costs in the arbitration process is to limit saves. The team could use Kevin Jepsen and Grant Balfour in the role until Jake McGee returns.
Toronto Blue Jays
•Russell Martin leads all catchers in roto production in 2015. He is going to a better park and is going to hit second in the lineup with speed in front of him and thunder behind him. The last catcher to score at least 90 runs in a season was Joe Mauer, who did it in both 2008 and 2009. Martin will end that dry spell in 2015. Yes, that will mean he doubles his runs scored total from 2014.
•Drew Hutchison wins the AL Cy Young. He tweaked his slider in the second half of last season and increased his swing and miss rate by six full percentage points. He will have plenty of offensive support behind him and if he can avoid the mistakes up in the zone, he could be in for a very big year.
Chicago White Sox
•Jose Abreu wins the MVP. For full disclosure, I also think this is the AL representative in the World Series. Abreu has tablesetters in front of him in Adam Eaton and Melky Cabrera and thump behind him in Adam LaRoche. If you thought 2014 was fun, he could be even better this season.
•Carlos Rodon is up by Mothers Day and will earn at least $10 in mixed leagues by season's end. He's also my pick to be the AL Rookie of the Year. His stuff is filthy.
Cleveland Indians
•Brandon Moss finishes in the top five for home runs in the American League. He's going from a park that suppresses lefty power to one that helps it and the hip is repaired -- 35 homers are coming.
•Danny Salazar, despite starting the season in the minors, comes back up to finish third in final production on the staff. He can be had for a song this weekend in drafts, but will cost a lot of FAAB dollars for those that wait until he gets called up. Draft and stash.
Detroit Tigers
•James McCann gets more playing time than Alex Avila and finishes in the top-eight slots for final AL catcher value. He hasn't gone for more than $2 in any auction I've been in over the last two weeks.
•Shane Greene out-earns Justin Verlander this season. Greene and his new offspeed pitch will be fun to watch this year as he gets out of New York and takes that next step. He's still going cheaply in auctions and late in drafts. More profit!
Kansas City Royals
•Jarrod Dyson continues his upward trend in stolen bases in 2014. He has increased his stolen base total each of the last five seasons, and he'll do it for a sixth season in 2015. He swiped 36 bases last season.
•Danny Duffy earns more at season's end than any other Kansas City starting pitcher. Then again, his only real competition is Yordano Ventura. Ventura's current ADP? 148. Duffy's? 261.
Minnesota Twins
•Trevor Plouffe hit 24 home runs in 2012 and has doubled up on 14 home run seasons since. His current ADP has him as the 23rd third baseman off the board and 80 picks behind AARParamis Ramirez and 70 picks behind Brett DLawrie. Plouffe will outproduce both and finish the season in the top 15 at the position.
•Phil Hughes repeats his 2014 success. Ignore the regression calls from the cheapseats.
Houston Astros
•Chris Carter hits .240 while hitting 40 homers and driving in 100. Trogdor hit .252/.338/.521 in the second half of the season last year.
• Asher Wojciechowski will be the Astros pitcher that comes out of nowhere this season to surprise us with his production. He's had a great spring and some changes in his delivery have led to better command for him.
Los Angeles Angels
•Mike Trout will have four times as many home runs as he does steals in 2015. He's still the 1.1 guy in drafts, but if you're drafting him for the speed, you're barking up the wrong tree.
•Jered Weaver finally becomes the suckwad many have predicted the past few seasons. His fastball now bounces off glass, and nobody is chasing his junk out of the zone. Weaver is going a round and a half in front of Matt Shoemaker. In the immortal words of Lil Jon ... "WUUUHAT???!!!"
Oakland Athletics
•Marcus Semien outearns Ben Zobrist this season. Yea, I said it. Zobrist is going to hit higher in the lineup, but his ceiling is sneaking into double-digits in homers and steals, and he's played 1,928 games a year over the last five seasons.
•Tyler Clippard becomes a top-five closer. His stuff and approach are tailor made for that toilet bowl of a stadium. He may have as many foul pop-outs at home as he does hits allowed. Doolittle may get Wally Pipp'd here.
Seattle Mariners
•Kyle Seager, not Nelson Cruz, leads the Mariners in home runs. Seager is on his way up while Cruz was not the same player over the final four months of the season. Forget 40, let's see Cruz get to 25 homers in 2015.
•Taijuan Walker makes me look stupid for continually calling him Edwin Jackson 2.0. Walker has scrapped his cutter for a slider this year and has been electric in the Cactus League.
Texas Rangers
•Rougned Odor finishes in the top 12 in overall production at second base. He is 80 spots behind Daniel Murphy on ADP, but if he plays to his true talent level, he has an outside chance at the top 10 at this position.
•Derek Holland picks up where he left off last season. Over the six starts he made last season, he threw 572 pitches and allowed zero home runs. That's huge for a guy that was serving bombs up left and right in the past. Sub 3.50 ERA? Check. Sub 1.25 WHIP? Check.
