This article is part of our Collette Calls series.
Now that the regular season is over, it is time for a series of articles where I throw myself at the feet of the court of public opinion.
Last year on this date, I reflected on my 15 National League bold predictions and how they played out. Today, I do the same and beg for your mercy because I did not do as well as
I did in 2015. This year, I will do something new and grade each prediction on the 20-80 scouting scale. All dollar values are from 12-team standard mixed leagues.
Quick tease: I'm hoping the skipper doesn't pink tag me and send me to die in the minors.
Ender Inciarte earns more than any Braves batter in 2016: The reasoning behind the move was that Inciarte had a red hot second half in 2015 showing solid skill growth and was still barely cracking the top 200. I though rather poorly of the Atlanta lineup and worried nobody would pitch to Freddie Freeman. I was wrong. Freeman earned $28, Nick Markakis earned $7, Adonis Garcia earned $5, and then Inciarte shows up at $4. The early injury did not help his cause and it hurt his stolen base production where a lot of his value was going to come from. Grade: 30
Keon Broxton leads the team in stolen bases: Broxton only played in 75 games for the Brewers, but did finish third on the team with 23 steals behind Hernan Perez (34) and Jonathan Villar (62). If Broxton had played full time, he could have swiped 40-plus bags and he did steal 41 bases between Triple-A and the majors. Overall, he was a replacement level $0 player in mixed leagues because he underperformed in the other categories, but 23 steals likely made a difference in the category in deeper leagues. Grade: 45
Brandon Moss leads the Cardinals in home runs: The logic behind this call was that he was coming off hip surgery over the winter of 2014 so he never looked right in 2015 and the ball didn't carry off his bat. His ADP was barely in the top 80 in the spring and I said there was a lot of power and profit upside there. This one fell two homers shy because Jedd Gyorko got red hot down the stretch and hit 30 homers to surpass Moss's 28. While I didn't fully nail this one, two homers is certainly within the margin of error. Grade: 70
Jake Arrieta's final ERA is not below 3.00: The simple defense of this prediction was the Plexiglas Principle: anyone who performs at such an elite level for an extended period of time as Arrieta did only has one direction to go. In 2015, his 80% LOB rate is what fueled the amazing ERA, but 80 percent is an impossible number for a starting pitcher to repeat year over year. Arrieta had a .246 BABIP in 2015 and that actually came in five points lower in 2016, but his LOB dropped to 75 percent because he permitted six more homers than he had in 2015 and made things worse by walking 76 batters compared to the 48 in 2015. His final ERA was 3.10 – nearly a run and a half higher than where it was in 2015. Grade: 80
Daniel Hudson leads the team in saves: Seven relievers had saves for Arizona this season, but Hudson did not lead the team even though the leader, Brad Ziegler, was traded in-season. Hudson finished second on the team with five saves but struggled in relief as he could not strand runner (62% LOB). There are still some things to like in Hudson as he can miss bats, but the hard contact was too frequent in 2016 but he remains an interesting deep NL speculation in 2017. Grade: 30
Yasiel Puig finishes the season as a top-12 outfielder in mixed leagues: I don't even have the words for this level of failure, so I'll let Jean-Ralphio say it for me:
Grade: -20
Sergio Romo once again saves 20-plus games: The reasoning behind this prediction was Romo had the best skills coming into the season and Santiago Casilla was simply not good. Unfortunately for this prediction, Casilla did not lose the job until very late in the season after pitching rather well early on. Romo ended up with just four saves despite another good year of skills. Grade: 25
Wei-Yin Chen is a top-20 starting pitcher in the NL by season's end: Chen only worked in 22 games and pitched in 123 innings. When he was on the mound, his walk and strikeout rates were right in line with previous efforts but moving from Camden Yards to Marlins Stadium did not suppress the homers that plagued him in the AL as he gave up even more homers in the National League. In this power breakout year, it was a bad time to be a pitcher that lived up in the zone and missed spots. Grade: 20
Yoenis Cespedes hits the fewest homers of the regular Mets outfielders: Did I say fewest? I meant most. He bested Curtis Granderson by one homer to take home this crown as the other Mets outfielders were mostly awful. The Plexiglas Principle didn't work as well here as Cespedes nearly matched his 2015 power numbers despite 130 fewer plate appearances. Grade: 20
Ben Revere returns to the 40-steal plateau: Dusty Baker likes to run and he also likes veterans so Revere seemed like a lock to play a lot and run. While he did finish with the second most plate appearance of all Washington outfielders, he fell 26 steals short of the 40 plateau because he was an abject failure at getting on base. Revere's OBP the previous four seasons was .333, .338, .325, .342, and then imploded to .260. I don't care how fast you are; you cannot steal first base. His BABIP fell off 104 points from 2015 which is a big deal when you're the type of batter that doesn't walk too often. Grade: 20
Jabari Blash will hit at least 15 homers: He fell 12 short of this as the Padres couldn't keep up a Rule 5 pick that struck out 41 percent of the time. He did hit 14 homers on the season between Triple-A and the majors, but only played in 100 games due to injury. Grade: 20
Tyler Goeddel wil put up a double-double season as a Rule 5 pick in the outfield: Yea, this Rule 5 pick didn't work out too well either. He hit four homers and stole three bases in 234 plate appearances as part of the rather punchless Phillies outfield. Odubel Herrera was the only outfielder on the roster to hit either 10 homers or steal 10 bases. Grade: 20
Jeff Locke wins 12-plus games with a 3.50 (or lower) ERA: I was optimistic that his groundball tendencies and the Pirate defense would be a great match for him. I admitted I was not very confident in the speculation because nobody on the roster really stood out as a gains candidate, but Locke fell well short of this. Nine wins and a 5.44 ERA and a 4.84 FIP were well earned as he couldn't miss bats, walked too many batters, and could not keep the ball in the yard. Grade: 20
Jumbo Diaz leads the team in saves: Like Romo, the skills were there for Diaz in 2015 but the saves were not. Six different Reds relievers had saves in 2016, but Diaz was not one of those six. His control regressed from 2015 as did his command as he was victimized by too many long balls. This was a jumbo miss. Grade: 20
Gerardo Parra hits .320 and steals 20 bases: Parra's 2016 was hurt by injury, but the final product fell well short as he hit just .253 and stole 6 bases in 381 plate appearances while playing a lot of games in Coors Field. If you want to buy a potential 2017 bounceback at low value, he remains an interesting play in deep leagues if he is healthy. Grade: 20
