This article is part of our The Long Game series.
I never do prediction columns. It's not that there's anything wrong with them; it's just not my thing. This season, though, with Opening Day coming early and a lot of interesting things happening around baseball that seem worth talking about, a format where I get to jump around and comment on different stuff under the guise of predicting what will happen over the next six months seems appropriate.
As with any group of predictions, some of these will be incorrect. Heck, all of them may end up being wrong. That's beside the point. The purpose of these predictions is to (clicks to first slide in TED Talk deck) disrupt your paradigms when it comes to certain aspects of fantasy baseball and assumptions you may be making without examining them – to get you thinking outside the batter's box, if you will.
Not all of these may be specifically applicable to keeper or dynasty formats, but all of them have fantasy applications even if they aren't of the "this dude will do good and that one won't" variety.
Without further ado…
1. At least one, if not both, of the NL wild-card teams will come out of the NL East. With the Marlins struggling to avoid triple digits in the loss column and no other NL team even close to as bad, the unbalanced schedule will give the Nationals, Mets, Braves and Phillies a big advantage in the standings. It will also make their pitching staffs a source of extra victories,
I never do prediction columns. It's not that there's anything wrong with them; it's just not my thing. This season, though, with Opening Day coming early and a lot of interesting things happening around baseball that seem worth talking about, a format where I get to jump around and comment on different stuff under the guise of predicting what will happen over the next six months seems appropriate.
As with any group of predictions, some of these will be incorrect. Heck, all of them may end up being wrong. That's beside the point. The purpose of these predictions is to (clicks to first slide in TED Talk deck) disrupt your paradigms when it comes to certain aspects of fantasy baseball and assumptions you may be making without examining them – to get you thinking outside the batter's box, if you will.
Not all of these may be specifically applicable to keeper or dynasty formats, but all of them have fantasy applications even if they aren't of the "this dude will do good and that one won't" variety.
Without further ado…
1. At least one, if not both, of the NL wild-card teams will come out of the NL East. With the Marlins struggling to avoid triple digits in the loss column and no other NL team even close to as bad, the unbalanced schedule will give the Nationals, Mets, Braves and Phillies a big advantage in the standings. It will also make their pitching staffs a source of extra victories, and Matt Grace and Jake Thompson will become fantasy darlings as they vulture their way to surprising win totals.
2. The top three finishers in the NL Rookie of the Year voting, in no particular order, will be Ryan McMahon, Scott Kingery and Jack Flaherty.
3. No, I didn't forget about Ronald Acuna. He'll come up in mid-April as expected, tear the cover off the ball for three weeks... and then the league will catch up to him. He'll finish the season with a .240/.290/.390 line, 11 homers and 23 steals, and will still only be 21 by Opening Day 2019 when he begins his ascent to superstardom in earnest.
4. Ozzie Albies, on the other hand, will hit .290 with 20 homers and 40 steals as he becomes the next Jose Ramirez, or Francisco Lindor, or Jose Altuve, or whichever middle infielder who develops a power stroke out of nowhere you prefer.
5. Home runs at Chase Field will be way down through mid-May while the rest of baseball continues to go long-ball crazy, but mysteriously, the park will return to almost normal after that. By the end of the year, homers at Chase will only be down about 12 percent. The Diamondbacks will vehemently deny that they tweaked the settings on their humidor over the course of the summer.
6. The following Opening Day closers in the National League will not end up leading their current team in saves: Brad Boxberger, Arodys Vizcaino, Brad Ziegler, Corey Knebel, Hector Neris and Sean Doolittle.
7. Caleb Smith will end up being the Marlins' most valuable starting pitcher on the season, wining nine games and striking out 140 batters with a 3.90 ERA and 1.35 WHIP.
8. Catcher will have some surprising depth in the Senior Circuit as Matt Wieters, Travis d'Arnaud and Devin Mesoraco all hit at least 20 home runs.
9. Tyler Glasnow figures things out, is in the rotation by May and is the Pirates' ace in the second half, finishing the season with a 3.10 ERA, 1.25 WHIP and 170 strikeouts.
10. Yasiel Puig leads the NL and all of MLB in home runs with 53, nearly doubling his previous career high set last year.
11. Four AL players will steal at least 30 bases. None of them will be Delino DeShields or Mallex Smith.
12. The top three finishers in the AL Rookie of the Year voting, in no particular order, will be Shohei Ohtani, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Niko Goodrum.
13. James Paxton will finally stay healthy and win his first Cy Young Award, finishing the season with 21 wins, a 2.60 ERA, a sub-1.00 WHIP and 240 strikeouts.
14. Nelson Cruz will hit fewer home runs than Kendrys Morales and Hanley Ramirez.
15. David Price will have more wins and more strikeouts than Chris Sale.
16. The following Opening Day closers in the American League will not end up leading their current teams in saves: Brad Brach, Kelvin Herrera, Fernando Rodney, Blake Treinen, and Alex Colome.
17. Miguel Sano will lead the American League in home runs with 51, edging out Giancarlo Stanton, J.D. Martinez and Mike Trout in a race that comes down to the wire.
18. Derek Fisher doesn't let go of the starting LF job in Houston, slashing .280/.360/.480 with 30 homers and 15 steals.
19. Rougned Odor hits under .200 and loses his job to Jurickson Profar by the All-Star break.
20. Over a span of four straight games in August, Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, Carlos Rodon and Michael Kopech each deliver scoreless starts with 10 or more strikeouts.
BONUS PREDICTION: Some of Chris Liss' predictions will be wrong.
