Collette Calls: 2025 AL East Bold Predictions

Welcome to another installment of my annual bold prediction series. It is my favorite part of my yearly work here at RotoWire, because I get as much from the exercise of putting this series together as I put into it. Every year, readers will reach out to me or interact with me on social media thanking me for putting them onto someone or steering them away from someone else. Thankfully, I am still here after advising to fade Chris Sale last year, but we cannot all be perfect in these calls. Otherwise, I would call this series, "bland predictions," and just take the easy way out to build up my success rate. 

This series is designed for all league sizes in mind. Shallow mixed leaguers will see some names which may not even end up on one of the rosters in their league by season's end and deeper league players will see some names specifically included for their enjoyment. Once the six installments of this series is completed by February 1st, you will have seen a hitter and a pitcher from each team and my thoughts on what I believe is within the realm of possibility for that player this season. I want to stress the "my" in that sentence, because I intentionally do not read any other similar articles or write-ups of players this time of year as much as possible. I will also cite any article which was part of the ingredients in my baked out bold prediction, because there have been a few things I have read this winter which changed my opinion on some players. After all, that is the entire foundation of this series over the years: to get you to think differently about what is happening in the market place and use it to your advantage. 

These were my better call-outs from this past season at the plate and on the mound:

• Brenton Doyle is a top-75 outfielder: He had an ADP of 442 when the prediction was published.
• Mark Vientos hits 25 homers: He was going in the 34th round when the prediction was published.
• Bo Naylor isn't a top-200 player: He was going 159th as a sophomore catcher when the prediction was published.
• Jo Adell is a top-80 outfielder: He didn't even play a full season and still finished inside the top-60 for outfielders and was buried in the ADP charts last draft season.
• Michael King is a top-40 pitcher: His ADP was 143 when the prediction was made, and he was 97th in the overall pitcher ADP. He finished 16th.
• Spencer Strider is not a top-20 pitcher: I took some flak for this one, but the references to the struggles Triston McKenzie and Alek Manoah went through after similar breakout seasons played out.
• Sean Manaea is a top-100 pitcher: He finished 19th overall and was freely available in the very late rounds of standard 15-team mixed-league drafts. 

I had some sizable misses as well, and I did accountability articles for the hitting and pitching predictions should you decide to read those before proceeding any further in this article. Simply put, I take immense pride in this annual series and there is a method behind the madness. I am happy to discuss any of these selections in the comments sections below or in our RotoWire MLB Discord channel if that is more your flavor. 

The premise of these bold predictions remains the same; to get you to think differently. I even wear the trademark Steve Jobs black turtleneck when I write each of these installments. I will provide you with some great hits by seasons end, but I will also offer up some notable misses as well. Either way, I will have gotten you to look differently at 60 players and take a deeper look into a possibility for that player that you may not have considered. 

Now, let's get into the fun! ADP references are from 40 Draft Champions drafts which have taken place this winter as of December 22nd at NFBC.

Baltimore

Jordan Westburg is the highest-rated second baseman at season's end (ADP 105)

How is this for a hot start? Westburg is the fifth-rated second baseman in drafts, but his ADP is nearly 80 points behind the current leader, Ketel Marte:

• Ketel Marte: 28
• Ozzie Albies: 53
• Jose Altuve: 61
• Marcus Semien: 98
• Westburg: 105

This position has had its ebbs and flows for depth in recent seasons, but this feels like one of the shallower seasons for the keystone and with three of the names in front of Westburg being longer in the tooth, I believe the opportunity is there for the younger Westburg if the stars align well for him. 

RosterResource currently has Westburg slotted eighth in the lineup, and if that persists, would make this prediction impossible because he needs to move up to get the plate appearances to volume his way to this prediction. (Note: RotoWire currently has him hitting fifth.) This prediction is about more than just Baltimore adjusting the left field dimensions to some form of normalcy this winter, especially considering Westburg hit just as many homers at home as he did on the road last season. The prediction, for now, is heavily leaning on Westburg challenging 30 homers, because he hasn't stolen many bases in his time as a major leaguer despite his youthful athleticism. 

When Westburg starts hitting, he will move up in the order as the lineup looks to adjust for the loss of Anthony Santander's power. Yes, they added Tyler O'Neill, but O'Neill has had one full season of play over the past four seasons because if any one athlete is too finely tuned physically, it's him. Westburg is a bargain outside the top-100 but that ADP is going to climb as we get closer to spring, so getting in on the ground floor now because the potential for Westburg to hit 30 homers and elevate his in-season status in a breakout way is right here in front of us.

So, in conclusion, the lines all go up so I'm happy.

Nobody in the Baltimore bullpen saves 20 games

I normally do single predictions for these, but I just continue to stare at this Baltimore situation and have no idea what to think. This is one of those areas where I aim to make you think differently, because the easy decision is Felix Bautista will shove once again and this will look stupid. I mean, the market is telling us to not overthink this, as the ADPs for this pen are as follows:

• Felix Bautista: 57
• Albert Suarez: 559
• Seranthony Dominguez: 610
• Yennier Cano: 675
• Keegan Akin: 706
• Gregory Soto: 750

The concern I have with Bautista is the long layoff due to his Tommy John surgery from February. We are all too familiar with how command is the last thing which comes back for a pitcher coming off major surgery. Bautista's climb from the minors had a history of plenty of strikeouts along with with plenty of walks until it all came together for him at the big league level in 2022. Brandon Hyde also recognizes he cannot just throw Bautista out there and expect things to pick up where they left off in 2023:

"He's coming off Tommy John, it's a big body with a lot of effort, but when he just got done with his last bit of rehab and now he's having a normal offseason...he was throwing in the upper-90's, he's ready to go," Hyde said to MLB Network Radio, adding that he will be cautious with him early in the year. "So you feel good about where he is right now...he's as dominant as anybody is in the back end of a game, but I'm probably gonna baby him a little bit early and try to keep him as healthy as I can for the full season."

I am not advising coming to this situation looking for a primary closer on your squad, but I do believe there is a chance to find some saves in this situation, especially early if Hyde is true to his word. Dominguez, Soto and Cano each have experience closing but they all come with their flaws as well. Akin deserves some consideration depending on matchups, and is a less volatile lefty option than the enigmatic Soto. I am also intrigued in very deep leagues by Colin Selby's stuff even if he has no idea where it is going based off the walk rates on his statistical vitae. 

Simply put, I do not believe this is the slam-dunk situation the marketplace believes it is so far and that there are opportunities to speculate on saves here with a final reserve pick or later round draft and hold format. 

Boston

Kristian Campbell is a top-15 second baseman (ADP 329)

Campbell is 28th at the position between Spencer Horwitz and Otto Lopez. Campbell and David Hamilton are essentially splitting the ballot on their own team, as Campbell is going one round in front of Hamilton despite Hamilton being the player currently slotted as the starting second baseman. 

It wasn't that long ago when Hamilton was the latest hot name, stealing 129 bases and hitting 29 homers between 2022 and 2023 in the Boston system. The statistical volume was there, but batting average was a concern then and it has since played that way at the major-league level. Simply put, the pressure is there on Hamilton to perform early or move aside for Campbell. Campbell has quickly moved up the Boston system after a successful if not brief collegiate career. Campbell went 20-20 and won a few accolades along the way. He has done nothing but hit at every level, and this video showing many of his 2024 homers features a lovely swing. I was particularly impressed with the second clip showing an opposite field home run:

The opportunity is there for Campbell to take the starting second base job quickly, and with his plate discipline, he could even be challenged with a spot very high in a lineup that is currently extremely lefty heavy with Jarren Duran, Rafael Devers and Triston Casas in the top half. Campbell, with his plate discipline skills and approach, could have an excellent all-around rookie season. Many a fantasy roster has been poisoned by putting too much faith in a rookie, but Campbell looks every bit the part of someone who could make an impact quickly. The fact he has the ability to play both second base and the outfield should only help his chances of making this club out of camp.

Kutter Crawford is a top-60 pitcher (ADP 246)

You will not believe me, but Crawford has the same opponents' batting average over the past two seasons as Michael King and Framber Valdez. Crawford was also one of just 14 pitchers in 2024 who held opposing hitters to an average below .225 with a K/9 of at least 8.5 and a BB/9 below 2.5. The chart below shows those pitchers and their current ADP:

That company alone should make it worth your while to take a flyer on Crawford given the fact he's going much later than the rest of the group of similar outcomes last season. If you had Crawford on a roster last year, you know how bad the splits were, but just in case you did not:

1st half: 3.00 ERA, .210/.272/.357 with 14 homers allowed in 114 IP

2nd half: 6.59 ERA, .244/.302/.513 with 20 homers allowed in 69.2 IP

I went into StatHead to find the list of pitchers who allowed 20 or more homers in a full season while pitching under 70 innings and found six such instances:

• Glendon Rusch in 2006
• Dylan Covey in 2017
• Ross Detwiler, Jeff Hoffman, Dan Straily and Edwin Jackson in the rabbit ball year of 2019

Simply put, Crawford was as unlucky as they come with homers in the second half of last season. The performance could also be attributed to him blowing away his career high for innings pitched, as he worked 183.2 IP last season whereas his previous high, at any level, was 143.2 innings back in A-ball during the 2018 season. I can guarantee Crawford will not repeat his 2.6 HR/9 ratio from the second half last year unless Boston relocates to an actual little league park this summer. 

Crawford still has good stuff, highlighted by his namesake pitch, and the goodness from last year got hidden behind his wretched close to the season. I believe Crawford has a nice bounceback season coming his way, and the characteristics he displayed in 2024 are costing a 16th-round pick in 15-team leagues while the other 13 similar skill profiles are off the board by the ninth round. I am ready to have my heart kut out again...

New York

Austin Wells is not a top-20 catcher (ADP: 205)

Wells had a successful rookie campaign last season to the point he was hitting cleanup in The Bronx against righties in the latter part of the summer. He was probably better behind the plate than he was at it, though, and it validated the club's decision to trade Kyle Higashioka and give Wells the majority of the catching duties. However, I am reminded of this time last year when Bo Naylor was in a similar situation, and that story did not go well in 2024. I expect Wells will have a down 2025 as well.

It is not the sophomore slump pseudo-science. Wells absolutely cannot hit lefty pitching, but he may need to hit lefties more this season because the current Yankees backup catcher, Alex Jackson, can't hit righties or lefties. Should Wells be forced to face a larger share of lefties, it could further pull down his batting average. Wells drove in 33 runs in 38 games while hitting cleanup last season, but the re-tooled Yankee lineup is unlikely to afford Wells the chances to hit that high in the order unless multiple injuries hit the roster. Honestly, the one thing he always has in his favor is his home park, yet he homered more frequently on the road last season than he did at home. 

Part of what made Wells valuable from a fantasy perspective last season was his low acquisition cost and the multiple circumstances that played out in his favor. This season, he could be over-exposed to lefties pulling down his average and his RBI production is likely to suffer with a move down in the lineup. Catcher is not terribly deep this season, but seeing Wells go as high as 158 is rather surprising given the relative downside.

Clayton Beeter is a top-200 pitcher (ADP 739)

Beeter is currently 379th on the pitcher list, down between Cooper Criswell and Andrew Nardi. I honestly struggled with finding an angle in this situation because I really like their starting rotation this year if they all stay on the mound, and their 7-8-9 looks to be a heavy concentration of strikeouts with Devin Williams, Luke Weaver and Fernando Cruz. However, the Yankees seem to find some reliever each season that surprises us. 2021 brought us Chad Green with 10 wins, six saves and plenty of strikeouts out of their pen while Clay Holmes won another eight games with good numbers. Holmes ascended to the closer role in 2022 while Michael King won 6 games with excellent ratios in middle relief. 2023 gave us a combination of a hot Ron Marinaccio start and a hot finish by Ian Hamilton whereas 2024 was the Luke Weaver breakout story. I believe Beeter could be the next man up in this successful track record.

Beeter was the player the Yankees acquired when they were finally able to get Joey Gallo off their roster and off to the Dodgers in 2022. The one thing Beeter and Gallo have in common is they both collect strikeouts in bunches. Beeter struck out 41.7 percent of the hitters he faced at Texas Tech before being drafted by the Dodgers. He's gone on to strike out 33.2 percent of the minor league hitters he has faced including 35.7 percent of those he faced between Double-A and Triple-A last season. He allowed 19 hits in 39 innings with 21 walks and 56 strikeouts. We saw how nasty he can be in Spring Training when he went through the Philadelphia A-liineup in early March:

Beeter is currently not on the projected Opening Day roster, but he did make it last year (due to injuries) and could pitch his way into the pen to work some of that valuable middle-relief work which created some of those aforementioned surprise productive seasons for fantasy managers trolling the AL-Only waiver wire. 

Tampa Bay

Jonathan Aranda is a top-250 player (ADP 344)

I would put this in one of the bolder of the bold predictions since Aranda has a .222/.309/.382 triple-slash line in 333 career major-league plate appearances, but I believe something is coming. Aranda has always had a bat-first reputation since joining the Tampa Bay organization in 2016. He has a career .302/.390/.480 triple-slash line across 2,300 plate appearances in the minor leagues with a history of strong walk rates and plenty of contact around sub-par defense at multiple positions in the field.

And then 2024 happened.

Aranda spent most of the season back in Triple-A Durham — where he had already amassed 900 plate appearances — and hit an uncharacteristic .237, yet he maintained his high on-base percentage at .368 thanks to a 16 percent walk rate while slugging .424. That was a noticeable drop-off from his .339/.449/.613 effort at Durham in 2023, but the most notable thing was his strikeout rate. Aranda has always made a good amount of contact, but a third of his plate appearances in Durham last season ended in strikeouts, which was well above anything he had ever done at that level (or any level) previously:

Aranda's 2024 season was initially disrupted by a broken ring finger suffered in spring training which kept him out until mid-May. That was followed by an oblique strain just a few weeks after returning that kept him out another two months. Aranda had looked excellent in camp, but took awhile to regain his timing during the season and was also working on some swing changes that materialized later in the season:

Aranda finished the season with a strong month of September, hitting four doubles and five homers in 85 plate appearances. Now he gets to take those talents to a temporary home park conducive to inflating lefty power and could get more playing time assuming Tampa Bay isn't done with the roster tinkering, as it's assumed Yandy Diaz and/or Brandon Lowe could be moved. September sample sizes are small and dangerous to invest in, but in 2008, a light-hitting infielder closed the season with 12 extra base hits in 68 plate appearances and went on to have a breakout 2009 campaign that seemingly came out of nowhere. That player was Ben Zobrist. Aranda will never be mistaken for the Zorilla in the field, so Aranda will have to hit to stay on the roster as he somehow still has a minor-league option and could be sent to Durham to challenge the service-time record set by Desmond Jennings. 

Drew Rasmussen is a top-10 closer this season (ADP 263)

It is all but assumed Pete Fairbanks will end up on another club this season. The oft-injured reliever is in the final guaranteed year of the contract he signed in 2023, with a club option in 2026 available as well. $10.67M is not a prohibitive amount for the club to keep, but they have historically moved these types at this stage to maximize the potential return from another club. We should start to prepare for other options now, because a deal is going to happen sometime between now and the deadline. 

The marketplace so far has looked at Rasmussen as the next man up, with Edwin Uceta trailing him by nearly 100 spots on the latest ADP report. Rasmussen, before his most recent injury, was pitching rather well in the rotation, but he looked even better coming back from his injury out of the pen in 2024. He struck out a third of the batters he faced and had Whiff% above 30 percent on his four-seamer (!!), cutter and sweeper out of the pen. A reason why I, and the market, like him better than Uceta is because Rasmussen is not as prone to home runs, something Uceta has had his issues with over his career. Rasmussen has had three major arm surgeries in his career, which might be his body telling him a starting pitching workload is not for him. 

I took a look at the Fangraphs Stuff+ report and looked for all relievers (min 30 IP) who met the following criteria:

• Stuff+, Location+, and Pitching+ scores 100 (league average) or higher
• Four pitches rated 100 or higher

The chart below shows the results and the ADP of those pitchers:

If you enjoyed my Jeff Hoffman bold prediction last year, this Rasmussen one is for you. Rasmussen's ADP will rapidly accelerate should Fairbanks be dealt before the season, so getting in early could pay off very well during the season. 

Toronto

Steward Berroa is a top-150 outfielder (not drafted)

How bold is it when you choose someone without an ADP? Berroa has not yet been selected in a draft this winter, but I still want to take this chance in deeper AL formats with a deep bench or 50-round drafts. 

Toronto's outfield situation is not exactly set in stone. The marketplace thinks so poorly of this situation that nobody has an ADP higher than 250, and only George Springer and Daulton Varsho crack the top 500. If someone can show something, opportunities are here. Joey Loperfido, Jonatan Clase and Addison Barger have talent, but none of them have what Berroa has shown in the minors: stolen base volume. Berroa has 237 minor-league steals and a 81 percent success rate over the course of his career. He has stolen 30-plus bases in each of the past four seasons and has mostly reached base on the strength of his willingness to accept walks, as his batting average has been anywhere from .219 to .281 over that same time.

Last season, he hit .281/.371/.454 with 34 steals in 42 attempts in Triple-A before a forgettable cup of coffee with the big-league club. Major-league pitchers will no doubt look to overpower the smaller outfielder as they did last September, but his willingness to accept walks did not persevere. Toronto could use some more help on the bases as only the Yankees were worse last season in baserunning run value according to StatCast. The current 150th outfielder is Gavin Sheets; Berroa can get there if he gets the opportunity and the bat isn't knocked out of his hands.

Kevin Gausman is not a top-80 pitcher (ADP 151)

Gausman is currently 62nd off the board among pitchers, going just after former teammates Yusei Kikuchi and Robbie Ray and just before Ryan Pepiot and Sandy Alcantara. I cannot get on board with this, and this may be due to my persistent frustration with Toronto's underperforming teams in recent seasons. There is value in volume, and Gausman has the sixth-most innings pitched of any pitcher over the past four seasons, but that volume may also be catching up with him, as his performance tumbled last season. 

Gausman's 14.0 percent K-BB% was a 41.4 percent drop-off from his 2023 effort and the first time since 2019 that his K-BB% fell below 20 percent. Other concerning trends include a five-year increase in the amount of zone contact he has allowed, including his highest rate since 2016 this past season and his lowest swinging-strike rate since the 2014 season. Gausman's splitter remains his moneymaker, but splitters have a symbiotic relationship with fastballs as they need each other to be most effective. Gasuman has lost 1.1 mph off his fastball over the past three seasons and batters hit 34 points higher off the pitch in 2024 than they had in 2023. The splitter suffered, as the whiff rate on that pitch dropped nearly 10 full percentage points last season even though it remained a very tough pitch for hitters to successfully put into play. 

This is problematic for a pitcher who does not have even a league-average breaking ball, so a declining pitcher on a perpetually underperforming team with a suspect bullpen is not the type of pitcher that should be going in the top-150 overall. He has gone as high as 88, and while there is value in volume, that is an extreme price to pay for upside which is not easily seen at this moment. Gausman has repeatedly delivered double-digit wins and sub-4.00 ERAs the past four seasons, but I believe both of those streaks are at risk of ending in 2025 and advise you to look elsewhere for your volume.