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Today, I am honored to take my turn giving you my 10 bold predictions for the 2021 season here at RotoBaller. It's a thrill to be featured on this site, and I look forward to continuing to put out content for you all over the 2021 season and beyond.
This was not an easy post to write. Going with the baseball theme, I would consider a 30% success rate here incredibly successful.
I tried not to cop-out and take any easy ones, so here I present my 10 bold predictions, enjoy!
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More SP Reach 200 IP Than In 2019
We are starting this really, really bold. The last time we played 162 games, 15 starting pitchers reached 200 innings. Even the birds won't join me out on this limb, but I'm proclaiming that we have all way overreacted to the innings pitched thing for 2021. No pitcher reached even 85 innings last year, but it was a special case. These guys were still keeping their arms loose during the delay, and I think that means it's not going to be a big deal for a lot of guys to push towards 200 innings again.
I think you will still see young guys with lots of years left on their contract be capped to 160 or so innings, but with your established starters I just don't buy that teams are going to be more careful than usual.
No Closer Earns 30 Saves
Double-digit closers earned 30 or more saves in each of the last three seasons, but it seems as though more and more teams are moving towards the closer-by-committee mentality. If we look at the projections, more than half the league (17 teams) have more than one player projected to save more than five games. The five teams that project for the most total saves (Twins, Nationals, Padres, Rays, Reds) all have closer-by-committee approaches.
For this prediction to come true, we will probably need to see guys like Kenley Jansen, Aroldis Chapman, Josh Hader, and Liam Hendriks miss some time or really struggle and lose their job, as those are all solidified closers on great to decent teams. Look, I could have just said that "there will be less closers than ever to get 30 saves" but that wouldn't be bold enough. We're going the full way, nobody gets to 30 and everybody who reached for closers in their draft suffers.
Three Marlins Pitchers End Up As Top-30 SP
Sandy Alcantara, Pablo Lopez, and Sixto Sanchez will have to tough out a lot of innings against tough divisional offenses, but these guys all look like potential complete studs. They all have strong sinkers that can generate ground-balls and limit the damage, and they all seem to have more than upside in the "stuff" they throw to really ramp up the strikeout counts. There are three things I look for primarily in starting pitchers
- High strikeouts (25%+)
- Low walks (8% or lower)
- High ground-ball rates (45%+)
While these guys have not checked the strikeout box very often, they have really been really strong collectively in these three categories:
| Player | Year | K% | BB% | GB% |
| Sandy Alcantara | 2020 | 22.7% | 8.7% | 49.1% |
| Pablo Lopez | 2020 | 24.6% | 7.5% | 52.2% |
| Sixto Sanchez | 2020 | 20.9% | 7.0% | 58.0% |
| Sandy Alcantara | 2019 | 18.0% | 8.7% | 44.6% |
| Pablo Lopez | 2019 | 24.6% | 7.5% | 47.6 |
If these three can turn their great raw stuff into a higher strikeout rate while keeping walks and ground-balls where they are, they will be really useful fantasy pitchers this year.
NL Central Pitchers Show Out - Corbin Burnes Wins Cy Young
I think schedule stuff is largely overstated, but this National League Central division has to be one of the least impressive offensive divisions in a long time. Team that up with the fact that the division is loaded with fantasy aces like Jack Flaherty, Luis Castillo, Brandon Woodruff, Sonny Gray, and Corbin Burnes and you have a recipe for not many runs being scored in that division.
Now, saying that Flaherty, Castillo, and Woodruff will get Cy Young votes isn't very bold, so I'm taking it to the next step and saying that Burnes straight up wins the award. This will be way more attributable to his amazing stuff than the opponents he faces, but he will definitely strengthen up those ratios with a few starts against the Pirates.
Joey Gallo Walks Less, Strikes Out Less, Leads Majors in HR by far
For his career, Joey Gallo has seen 14% of his plate appearances end in a walk and 38% end in a strikeout. That makes 52% of his plate appearance ending with no ball being put in play. Over a 600 plate appearance season, that gives him only 288 chances to get a hit. Despite that, Gallo has still managed 120 homers in 473 career games, a 41 homer pace over a full season.
The strikeouts and walks are not unrelated. Every swing and miss early in the count slightly increases the chance of Gallo drawing a walk since the at-bat continues after the whiff. Gallo does whiff a ton (18.3% swinging-strike rate for his career), but he also just does not swing very often (46% for his career). If he would choose to swing more often in 2021, things could really change drastically. It's also true that his swinging strike rate reached a new low in 2020 at 15.8% after falling in 2019 as well.
If we see Gallo swing more, maintain that increased contact rate, and run into a little bit of luck, he could legitimately hit 60+ homers. I'll be the one to say he'll do it.
Corey Kluber and Jameson Taillon Stay Healthy and Dominate
So far, so good. Kluber and Taillon have both made a few Spring Training outings and they have looked pretty good overall. A lot of the Yankees' 2021 success is tied to the health of these two righties, and I'm a believer.
Lots of people would say it's unlikely that these two could possibly return to their pre-injury selves. I believe they can. These are not guys that ever blew people away with their stuff, a lot of their success was about their ability to pitch and locate. Location is something you can maintain as you age and deal with injuries, while velocity and movement are not. I'm not saying that I feel confident in their ability to throw 150+ innings, but I think it's way more likely than what people think, and I don't have any questions about their performance when they're out there on the rubber.
Shohei Ohtani Wins an MVP Award
It feels like a long time ago now, but in 2018, Shohei Ohtani hit 22 homers, drove in 61 runs, and stole 10 bases while hitting .285/.361/.564 as a hitter. As a pitcher, he threw 51.2 innings with a 3.31 ERA, a 1.16 WHIP, and a 29.9% strikeout rate while winning four games for the Angels. He was an above-average hitter and pitcher while on the field for the Angels, and he took up just one roster spot for their team.
Let's imagine that he stays healthy and maintains that same production. If he starts every sixth game for the Angels he would make 27 starts, which would likely clear 130 innings. If started as a hitter in 60% of the Angels games, he would flirt with 400 plate appearances. He could hit 25 homers and steal 15 bases while driving in 70 runs in those games if things go well for him. These are best-case scenarios, no doubt, but I don't really see how this shouldn't earn him serious MVP consideration. His statistical output would certainly be more significant than any other player, and the fact that the Angels would be getting that from just the one roster spot would also be enormously valuable to them.
If he does that, and you are in a fantasy league that lets you start him as a hitter and a pitcher in the same matchup, then he would easily be the most valuable rotisserie fantasy player in the game. I think that Ohtani is capable of doing all of this, and I think it would be enough to convince the voters to give him the MVP.
Shane Bieber Falls Flat
Bieber being considered with Gerrit Cole and Jacob deGrom has just never felt right to me. Yes, he won the Cy Young Award last year with a 1.63 ERA, a 0.87 WHIP, and a 14.2 K/9. However, the 77.1 innings he threw are just 18% of his career total right now. Are we really going to weigh that 2020 season more heavily than 2018 and 2019? I don't think we should be so quick to do that. For his career, he now has a 3.32 ERA, a 1.10 WHIP, a 30.4% strikeout rate, and a 5.1% walk rate. Those are still elite numbers, but any regression and he starts looking more like a "very good" fantasy pitcher rather than "elite."
I'm not going to be bold enough to say that Bieber won't be a top 20 fantasy pitcher, but I won't be surprised at all to see him fall out of the top 10 and that would be pretty costly to those managers drafting him as a top-three SP.
Byron Buxton Goes Nuts
The post-hype sleeper of all post-hype sleepers is Buxton, who has done nothing but strike out, get hurt, and mash the ball over the last few years. If you take what he has done over the last two seasons and extrapolate it over a full 162-game season, you would have a guy posting a ridiculous 101-run, 35-homer, 110-RBI, 24-steal line. And all of that is from hitting almost exclusively out of the nine-hole. He has been hitting in the middle of the order for the Twins this spring, so he should be able to clear a career-high in plate appearances with any injury luck whatsoever.
The problem with Buxton is how often he strikes out and how little he walks. That makes him susceptible to incredibly damaging cold streaks, and that is why he has hit just .259 with a .293 on-base percentage over the last two seasons. However, the power and speed combination he brings is nearly unmatched. If he can cut down on the whiff a little bit this year and stay in the lineup, he could post a monstrous line of counting stats for your fantasy team. My specific bold prediction is a 30-homer, 30-steal year for the Twins centerfielder.
All Three Top-Ranked Fantasy Catchers Finish Outside of Top 10
The top three catchers in ADP are J.T. Realmuto, Salvador Perez, and Will Smith. Those are the first three off the board in almost every draft. My prediction is that each of these guys really falls flat this year and does not finish in the top 10 among catchers.
It's been a nice run for Realmuto, but this will be his age-30 season. I just don't know how much more his body can take. While that might not manifest in missed playing time, it could very well start chipping away at his offensive production. Perez is also 30 years old, and finds himself back in the top three after hitting .333/.353/.633 in a short 37 game sprint last year. In my mind, there's a very small chance he can keep anything like that going for a whole 162-game season, and I think the guy is wildly overvalued even as one of the few catchers hitting in a prominent spot in the lineup.
As for Will Smith, I mean this guy has been one of the craziest streaky hitters I've ever seen. After a hot week to start his big league career, he limped to the finish line in 2019 with a .220/.318/.465 line over his last 34 starts. Over his last 22 starts that line was .183/.277/.305. Sure, I'm being nitpicky here to prove my point, and that's not fair, but I just don't see enough on Smith's track record as a hitter to feel confident about his ability to be a strong hitter for a full season.
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