This article is part of our Collette Calls series.
Welcome to the fantasy baseball offseason. Personally, it is my favorite time of year because I'm already tied for first in my 2016 leagues. It is also a great time to look back at what went right and what went wrong during the fantasy baseball season. If you've followed my writing for any time, you know that I do like to hold myself accountable for advice I gave the previous offseason to help you prepare for your drafts. This will be the first of a series of several self-reflections as I look back on advice I offered in 2015 to see how well or how poorly I did. Feel free to praise me or chastise me in the comments below. Each of these reflective pieces will be outside the RotoWire firewall so that the court of public opinion can judge me for my efforts.
First up -- my 30 AL Predictions I made on April 1.
J.J. Hardy fails to hit double-digit home runs for a second consecutive season: This came true as he hit eight homers in 114 games and 411 plate appearances. He was slow to come back from the shoulder issue that flared up in spring training and then had issues with his back and groin during the season.
Chris Tillman will finish 2015 in the top 20 for overall value: Did I say 20? I meant 200. He was literally worthless in 12-team mixed leagues at $0. His command was AWOL in the first half and his 5.40 ERA and 1.56 WHIP were ugly. The second half showed some improvement (4.55, 1.20), but he struggled all year stranding runners.
Mookie Betts out-earns Dustin Pedroia: Betts earned $24 in standard 12-team mixed leagues while Pedroia missed a bunch of time and earned $1. Now? He's going to be drafted before the fourth round in 2016.
Joe Kelly strikes out at least 132 batters (doubling his 2014 total) to provide nice end-game value: This did not happen, though he did earn as much as Tillman while getting 10 wins and 110 strikeouts while destroying ratios.
Brett Gardner leads all Yankees batters in fantasy value and goes 20/20 while hitting .285: He finished second only to Alex Rodriguez in overall value and hit .259 with 16 homers and 20 steals. He was easily on pace to do this at the break but fell apart in the second half and crawled to the finish line. He easily outpaced Jacoby Ellsbury, who was being taken 50 spots ahead of Gardner.
Nate Eovaldi has the best end of year profit on the Yankees staff: He "earned" 14 wins with some amazing run support and struck out 121 batters in 154.1 innings, but the 4.20 ER and 1.45 WHIP zapped any value.
Kevin Kiermaier ends up with more roto production than Desmond Jennings: Kiermaier did this because he actually played all season while Jennings has the knees of a 58-year old and barely made it over the 100-PA plateau. Kiermaier earned $3 in standard mixed leagues and came on strong in steals down the stretch, finishing with 18 while batting .263. If he could lay off the high heater and bunt more, he'd hit .300.
Three Rays pitchers will end up with at least five saves and one won't be Brad Boxberger: Three pitches did end up with at least five saves, but Boxberger ended up with 41 saves in a bad year while Jake McGee missed a bunch of time with injuries and Kevin Jepsen was dealt.
Russell Martin leads all catchers in roto production in 2015: Martin tied for third with Brian McCann, mainly because he gave back 50 points in batting average going back to the American League despite setting a career high in home runs. He still would not have outdone Buster Posey, but he would have finished an easy second place.
Drew Hutchison wins the AL Cy Young: It would have been nice if he would have told me he was changing his slider yet again and going back to the craptastic version he threw in the first half of 2014. If Hutchison could have pitched at home all year, this prediction might have come true. He had a 2.91 ERA and 1.12 WHIP in home starts with a 21 percent K rate and a .238 average against. On the road, he had a 9.83 ERA, a 2.06 WIP, struck out 18 percent of the batters he faced and they hit .371 against him. I can't even ...
Jose Abreu wins the MVP: This prediction was predicated on the fact I thought Adam Eaton and Melky Cabrera would be great in front of him and Adam LaRoche would do decent behind him. Eaton was awesome, but that didn't start until after the All-Star break. Melky never got it going and LaRoche had his worst season since his injury-marred 2011 campaign. Still, Abreu finished sixth among first baseman in overall production and 20th overall.
Carlos Rodon is up by Mothers Day and will earn at least $10 in mixed leagues: I was only $10 off in this prediction as he did make it up before Mothers Day, but struggled with command. He ended up going 9-6 in 23 starts with a 3.75 ERA and a 9.0 K/9, but the 1.44 WHIP was the real killer. I'm beginning to sense a trend in my pitching predictions ...
Brandon Moss finishes in the top five for home runs in the AL: While he never missed time this year due to injury, one has to wonder how much the hip issue that ended last year carried over. His .181 ISO was his lowest full-season total since 2009.
Danny Salazar will finish third on the Indians staff in final production: A-ha! I got a pitcher prediction right! Salazar finished with $13 in production in standard leagues, just behind Carlos Carrasco and Corey Kluber who were each at $15. Salazar made 30 starts, struck out 195 in 185 innings and had a 3.45 ERA and 1.13 WHIP. If he had been up all season, he too would have struck out 200. As it were, he earned as much as John Lester who was drafted well ahead of him.
James McCann gets more playing time than Alex Avila and finishes in the top-eight slots for final AL catcher value: McCann tied for eighth place with Yan Gomes and got 401 at-bats compared to just 178 for Avila.
Shane Greene out-earns Justin Verlander this season: Remember those ugly road numbers for Hutchison? That was Greene wherever he pitches. As good as his stuff looked out of the Yankees' pen in 2014, Greene did not cut it in the rotation. Despite having three pitches, he couldn't put anyone away and his command was terrible and often missed location to the fat part of the plate.
Jarrod Dyson will steal more than 36 bases in 2015: Dyson stole 26 bases as he appeared in fewer games and got fewer at-bats compared to the previous season. His games played dropped by 30 while his plate appearances dropped by 65. Still, 26 is a good number when 38 led the American League.
Danny Duffy is the highest dollar earner of all the K.C. starting pitchers: This didn't happen as fantasy zombies Edinson Volquez and Chris Young finished ahead of him as did Yordano Ventura. Duffy struggled with command all year and finished the season in the bullpen.
Trevor Plouffe will outproduce Aramis Ramirez and Brett Lawrie at third base and finish top 15 at the position: Plouffe did indeed finish in the top 15 at third base at 15th, ahead of both Lawrie (23rd) and Ramirez (30th).
Phil Hughes repeats his 2014 success: Actually, he repeated his 2011 failures. His strikeout rate dropped and his home-run rate went to a career high 1.68 per nine innings. He was still stingy with the walks, but he got 11 wins the hard way.
Chris Carter hits .240 with hitting 40 homers and driving in 100: He did this -- in my PS4 league. He ended up with 24 homers, drove in 64 and hit .199 despite more walks. This swing and a miss was as bad as many of his own this year.
Asher Wojciechowski will be the surprise Astros pitcher in 2015: He was gone after five games in 2015 and banished to the minor leagues.
Mike Trout will have four times as many home runs as he does steals in 2015: He nearly pulled it off with 41 home runs and 11 steals. It's the fourth straight season his stolen base total has declined.
Jered Weaver finally becomes the suckwad many have predicted the past few seasons: And this happened. Only made 26 starts with seven wins, a 4.64 ERA and just 90 strikeouts in 159 innings.
Marcus Semien outearns Ben Zobrist: This was on pace to happen before Zobrist got a bump in value going to KC. Zobrist finished the year at $8 while Semien finshed at $4 in standard mixed leagues.
Tyler Clippard becomes a top-five closer: Had he not been dealt to the Mets half way through the season, he may have had a shot at this. As it were, he still earned more than Greg Holland and Fernando Rodney.
Kyle Seager, not Nelson Cruz, leads the Mariners in home runs. Forget 40, let's see Cruz get to 25 homers in 2015: He hit his 25th home run on July 26 and finished with 44. Seager finished the year with 26, so he did his part but Cruz couldn't be a team player for me.
Taijuan Walker sheds my Edwin Jackson 2.0 label: This one happened as he had a positive roto value on the season, won 11 games, struck out nearly a batter per inning and had a 1.20 WHIP. The 4.56 ERA was the one downside.
Rougned Odor finishes in the top 12 at second base: He finished 19th at a very deep position this year. He was horrendous for the first six weeks before he was sent down to Triple-A. After his recall, he hit 15 home runs, 41 extra-base hits and had a triple slash of .292/.334/.527.
Derek Holland picks up where he left off last season: Holland got hurt in his first start of the season and didn't make it back on the mound until Aug. 19. He allowed 10 homers in 10 starts, including twice allowing three homers in an outing.
By my count, I hit on 10 of 30, which makes me a .300 hitter for the AL Bold Predictions. Your thoughts?
