Collette Calls: AL East Bold Predictions

All 30 predictions for the National League – 15 hitters and 15 pitchers – are complete. Now, it is time for the American League predictions, and we will begin with the American League East.

Baltimore Orioles

I have already given you the reasons I like Dylan Bundy for 2018, so I won't go for a cheap re-has of that here as one of the breakouts but will remind you to read this piece from mid-January.

Jonathan Schoop (ADP 63) finishes outside the Top 100. Schoop has well-established skills throughout his career: few walks, league-average strikeout rate and growing power. 2017 was his true coming out party as he set career highs in every offensive category that involves a bat (Orioles just do not run), but I have a legitimate fear that Schoop takes a step backward this year while the market appears to be looking for a repeat. He's our seventh-ranked second baseman, while ADP ranks him fifth.

Schoop's 38-point difference between his weighted on-base average (.361) and his expected weighted on-base average (.323) was one of the 25 lowest for players with at least 500 plate appearances in 2017. His average exit velocity was smack dab in the middle for batters with at least 400 batted balls into play while his average distance on his batted ball was slightly below that group's average.

Mike Wright (ADP doesn't exist) is the third-most valuable starter on this team in 2018. This tip is for you AL-only players because Wright is not rosterable in mixed league formats. I have already professed my love for Bundy in 2018 and Gausman is going to compile his strikeouts even as the longball continues to limit his upside. The rotation after those two is projected to be Andrew Cashner and the 2018 regression tour, Chris Tillman serving up souvenirs to the fans in the bleachers and Gabriel Ynoa. Then, there is Mike Wright sitting on the roster who is out of options and will be exposed to waivers if he does not make the club.

Wright's major league career involves all of 144 innings over three seasons with a 5.86 ERA and a 1.45 WHIP with a pedestrian 16 percent strikeout rate. Each time he has come up, his numbers have been a bit better, and last year his strikeout rate jumped from 15 to 26 percent, albeit in a limited sample size of 25 innings in relief. Wright was a full-time starter in the minors, and at Triple-A the last few years he had a 3.53 ERA and 1.24 WHIP in nearly 400 innings but has not been able to translate that success to the majors. Last year, he looked different from the pen as he cut back on his fastball usage and went heavier with his slider, and while the results against righties improved, it was not the same story against lefties.

A big part of his struggles in the big leagues come from his inability to face lefties as they have absolutely crushed him to the tune of a .320/.384/.578 slash line in 276 batters faced. He recognized that problem and is working on adding a cutter to his repertoire this spring, which is a needed weapon to get in on the hands of lefties and away from the sweet spot of their bats. The fact that he is out of options, on a team desperate for pitching, gives him a high probability of making the team. If the cutter goes north with him from Sarasota, he could be an AL-only reserve pick who returns a few dollars of profit.

Boston Red Sox

Xander Bogaerts (ADP 85) will be a top 50 player. Last year, Bogaerts's ADP was 31, but he finished the season a below-average hitter with a .273/.343/.403 line, and his home runs dropped from 21 in 2016 to just 10 last season. This year, he is ninth in our shortstop rankings, one spot below where the ADP market has him. Last year, a midseason hand injury took what was a decent season into the toilet and his numbers suffered. Despite the changes in his launch angle last year, his exit velocity suffered due to playing through the hand injury and did not translate into the power expected from such an adjustment in launch angle.

The hand is healthy and he worked out all winter in Arizona to get back to where he was headed before last season, admitting he should not have played through his hand injury. We are one season removed from him being drafted as a top-40 player, and now his highest draft spot in NFBC leagues has been 57 while someone has gotten him as low as 130. If we take into account his improvement in launch angle and the improvement of his hand along with his offseason conditioning, it is possible he gets back to what we are projecting for Alex Bregman in 2018:

It is not tough to imagine how a troublesome plant leg would be problematic for a pitcher, but Rodriguez pitched through it with some rather impressive metrics. His strikeout rate was in the top 20th percentile last year for pitchers with at least 100 innings, while his swinging strike rate was in the top quartile. 2017 was the third consecutive season Rodriguez improved his K-BB percentage, and he took his swinging strike rate from 8 to 12 percent the last three seasons. The list of pitchers the last three seasons who have put up the skills Rodriguez did in 2017 – at least a 25 percent strikeout rate, 17 percent K-BB% and 12 percent swinging strike rate – puts Rodriguez in the same class as the following pitchers last season:

Rodriguez will have a significant gap to overcome regarding workload stats as he is likely to throw 40 fewer innings than both guys, but I think his skills will win out and he will outproduce what Porcello and Pomeranz do in 170 innings by what he does in 130 innings.

New York Yankees

Brandon Drury (ADP 414) hits 25 homers. Drury's trade from Arizona to New York has a few impacts. He will only be eligible at second base on draft day and will gain third base eligibility quickly as he takes over the hot corner for the Yankees. The move to Yankee Stadium is timely for Drury because the use of a humidor in Arizona would have impacted his power, which plays better in Yankee Stadium anyway – he could have five additional home runs last year had he played in Yankee Stadium.

Drury now moves to a more favorable division for right-handed home run park factors than the one he left in the NL West (data via BaseballMonster.com).

Adams did not show any issues with splits last year at the minor league level, despite the fact he does not have a good offspeed pitch. His damage is done by his quality fastball and slider combination, so getting ahead early allows him to hide the fact he doesn't have that quality third offering. Adams has seen his indicators get a little worse at each step up the ladder with his strikeout rate slightly falling and his walk rate slightly climbing.

In Adams, the Yankees have talent but seem to recognize that he cannot stick as a starter, so the pen would be a great fit for him. The problem with this prediction is the bullpen depth chart has just two pitchers with options to be sent to the minors in Green and Tommy Kahnle, and that is not going to happen. Adams could very well begin the year back in Triple-A but should be the first guy up when an arm is needed and could very well stay up.

Tampa Bay Rays

I'm fearful making predictions because the team might end up trading the players I write about before this article gets published. That or the pitcher will snap his elbow and be gone for the year.

C.J. Cron (ADP 402) hits 30 homers. Last year, Logan Morrison surprised us all with 38 homers out of nowhere, and perhaps Cron can snap his string of three consecutive seasons of 16 home runs by trying to double that total in 2018. The change in the home ballpark is rather negligible, but the AL East road games should be fun as Cron gets to leave a division littered mostly with neutral parks for right-handed power to one practically tailor-made for it.

The problem for Cron throughout his career is that he is a lefty stuck inside the body of a righty. You do not see too many splits like this from a young righty slugger:

Cron also has some interesting StatCast data that helps me believe there may be more in his bat in a new opportunity:

That line would have looked better had he not finished the season on a 5-for-37 note. He has a full-time job in Tampa Bay at first base or DH for a team that needs all of the power in the lineup it can get. The Rays hit 200 or more home runs in each of the last two seasons, yet scored fewer than 700 runs both times, which is something that has been done only four times in the history of baseball.

The club came within two runs of scoring the fewest in the American League in 2017 thanks to many solo home runs and too many strikeouts. This year's club is going to get back to the old days of slashing and dashing, and letting one or two guys bash them in. In 2007, that was Carlos Pena, and in 2018, that could be C.J. Cron.

Jose De Leon (ADP 517) leads the team in saves. It is not a matter of if Alex Colome will be dealt, but when he will be dealt. He is heading to arbitration next year and the saves he compiled in recent years makes him a prime candidate to be traded. Closers on also-ran teams are dealt in June, and that is where I see the Rays and Colome this year. Once Colome is out of the picture, things get wide open because Sergio Romo could be gone too as an attractive ROOGY guy for a contender, and the team could decide to go with the kid.

De Leon is only a season removed from being named a top-40 prospect by multiple organizations but struggled through a multitude of non-surgical injuries last year and pitched less than 41 innings last season. He has only worked in relief a handful of times in his career but is beginning the transition to relief in 2018 despite the recent trade of Jake Odorizzi and the injury to Brent Honeywell. It makes sense with Anthony Banda, Yonny Chirinos and others on the depth chart. De Leon could get pushed aside by the hard-throwing Diego Castillo as well, but De Leon, when healthy, has the highest upside of any of the young arms projected to be in the bullpen. He has three pitches and has projected to be an above-average big league starter, but the string of recent injuries could lead him to a different role in 2018 and beyond.

The popular prediction will be a Blake Snell breakout, but that train got rolling on in the back third of last year, and it is super trendy now, so I am not piling on that bandwagon. That said, I am keeping him at $11 in my home 11 team AL-only league.

Toronto Blue Jays

Kendrys Morales (ADP 303) is a top-250 player. Morales had a 160 ADP in 2017 and has seen his value plunge this year on the ADP market. He fell two homers shy of his 2016 number while scoring two more runs in 2017, but the RBI total dropped by eight and his batting average fell 13 points. Is that enough to fall nearly 150 spots – 10 rounds in a 15-team league – in 2018? The market says yes; I say no.

Morales spent 2017 hitting mostly fourth (323 PA) or fifth (221 PA) in the lineup, but had his RBI opportunities limited by some struggles in front of him. The Toronto leadoff hitters combined for a .285 on-base percentage, and the third spot in the lineup had a .338 on-base percentage. Only the second spot, mostly occupied by Josh Donaldson, had a strong .354 on-base percentage. To be fair, Morales did not help his cause with a .231/.309/.438 line with runners in scoring position. Throughout his career, he has either been very good (2013, 2015, 2016) in those situations or very bad (2014, 2017) – almost as if hitting with runners in scoring position is not a predictive skill. This season, the lineup in front of Morales against righties projects to be Curtis Granderson (.337 OBP vs. RHP), Josh Donaldson (.386 OBP vs. RHP) and Justin Smoak (.338 OBP vs. RHP).

StatCast says Morales underperformed his .326 weighted on-base average by 33 points as the exit velocity and launch angle he displayed should have produced a .359 wOBA.

Estrada has had a nice run of somewhat controling his batting average on balls in play as it ranged from .216 to .262 from 2013 through 2016 until spiking up to .295 last season. That BABIP went from .216 in 2015 to .234 in 2016 and before skyrocketing 61 points last year. Estrada is an extreme flyball pitcher, so he counts on his outfield defense to hawk the balls headed their way. Kevin Pillar is good, but the corner outfielders last year were terrible, and the Jays were the worst outfield in baseball last year in outs above average compared to 11th in 2016. They went from five outs above average in 2016 to 22 outs below average in 2017. If you are looking how a flyball pitcher's BABIP can jump 61 points, that was a big part of it.

Randal Grichuk is an upgrade from either corner outfielder Toronto employed last year while Curtis Granderson is more of the same.

StatCast says Estrada slightly outperformed his weighted on-base average in both 2015 and 2016, but severely underperformed is last year as his .299 xwOBA was 39 points below his actual .338 wOBA. Estrada spent the offseason looking at video and determined he was tipping his changeup and the data may give that theory some credence: