Collette Calls: NL West Bold Predictions

The premise for bold predictions remains the same: they need to be grounded in some form of reality. When I am looking at the numbers behind bold predictions, I am looking at something that is the 10 percent area of likely outcomes for that batter or pitcher. They've either had to do the performance before, or have the hidden metrics in their profile that point to something good or bad about to come. I'm not going out there predicting an MVP award for Russell Martin, but you're damn right I did a victory lap when Christian Yelich won the MVP last year because that was my prediction. In fact, I won a prediction contest against 120 other national baseball writers hosted by Mark Simon of ESPN on the strength of being the only person that had Yelich on his pre-season MVP ballot, and I picked him first. That choice pushed me over the top for the victory.

The ultimate goal of these predictions is to get you to re-think your own evaluation of these players. I'm looking for outcomes that are outside the mainstream predictions. It is why I did not put Nick Pivetta down as a sleeper for 2019, because he is wide awake on the market. It is why I went the other way with Nate Eovaldi because everyone else loves him this year after what he did in the postseason.

If you care to revisit my bold predictions for the NL West from 2018, you can read them here. I'm very proud of the prediction on German Marquez and Alex Wood, but did not earn the Dinelson Lamet one since that was injury related. Meanwhile, I nearly got Evan Longoria's power demise right, but missed badly with Ketel Marte, Patrick Corbin, Logan Forsythe, Hunter Renfroe, Ryan McMahon and Chris Stratton.

Arizona Diamondbacks

Jarrod Dyson steals at least 30 bases. He stole 16 last season for the same club under the same manager in 67 games and 237 plate appearances, but missed a large chunk of time with a groin injury. Dyson has never needed a full season of play to steal 30 bases in a season as he has done so five times in his career despite never having more than 337 plate appearances in a season. At age 34, and coming off an injury-marred season, Dyson is freely available in NFBC with an ADP of 626. In my most recent draft, he went 693. I've said often this offseason that steals will be up league-wide, and Dyson will have his pinch-running chances plus it only takes yet another Steven Souza Jr. injury for Dyson to get increased playing time. Even at age 34, Dyson's StatCast sprint speed is tied with Whit Merrifield, Ramon Laureano and Dee Gordon.

Archie Bradley is a top-10 closer. He is currently the 18th closer off the board in NFBC drafts with an ADP of 214. Bradley had three saves last season working out of middle relief, mostly as a one-pitch pitcher. Bradley got his finger caught in a car door before last season and struggled with his knuckle-curveball all season due to issues with that nail. The real nail continued to crack and Bradley went as far as using acrylic nails to help through the pain – which is illegal. He outed himself in a social media post and had to stop using those in mid-June. Bradley did not get back to his 2017 level of knuckle-curve utilization until the final month of the 2018 season:

The overall effectiveness of that knuckle-curve in 2018 was a step back from 2017 as the pitch simply was not the same type of weapon:

He will have that pitch back in its regular form in 2019, and is also working on a changeup this spring, though he has been quite good against lefties the last two seasons without one.

Colorado Rockies

Garrett Hampson steals at least 40 bases. The projections have him for around 20, but Hampson swiped 51 in Asheville in 2017, and 38 across three levels in 2018. There was initial worry that the acquisition of Daniel Murphy was going to marginalize Hampson, but the kid appears to have the lead on the job for opening day second baseman in 2019.

Hampson owned both a strong walk rate and a high contact rate throughout his minor league stops, but did not get much of a chance to show either last year once he was recalled. He has been successful in 84 percent of his stolen base attempts for his career, including going 38 of 43 last season. He will hit seventh in the lineup, in front of the catching duo of Tony Wolters and Chris Iannetta, a duo that grounded into 19 double plays between them.

It would behoove Bud Black to put Hampson in motion as often as possible in front of those two, even with the risk of a strikeout/throwout double play. Colorado only attempted 124 steals as a team last season, but was successful in 74 percent of their attempts. Hampson has top ten StatCast sprint speed at 30.0 feet per second, topped only by the likes of Buxton, Quinn, Sierra, Engel, Hamilton, Turner, and tied with DeShields Jr.

Scott Oberg is a top 150 pitcher. Oberg is the 281st pitcher off the board with an ADP of 703. He had value last year with eight wins and stellar ratios in a middle relief role to get the ball to Wade Davis. Davis had his issues in the summer time, but finished the season on a very strong note. I envision Oberg being used in the same manner I see David Robertson being used this season, allowing him to get the strikeouts and closer insurance should Davis fall back into bad habits. Either way, Oberg should see a lot of high leverage situations that will allow him to grab wins and potentially saves should something happen to Davis.

He is tough to barrel up, and like Davis, kicked it up a few notches as the season wore on. His validation was how he closed out the Cubs to finish the postseason, and I think he continues to pick up where he left off from there in 2019.

Los Angeles Dodgers

Corey Seager finishes outside the overall top 125. Seager is currently the 80th player off the board with an ADP of 85. He has gone as high as 53 in a draft and went 75th overall in my most recent NFBC draft. The Statcast data tells us to buy in because Seager had the sixth-largest split between his actual wOBA (.324) and his expected wOBA (.376) in 2018.

The problem I have here is that kind of ADP is projecting a full season of playing time, and I don't agree with it. Seager is coming off both Tommy John surgery as well as hip surgery in 2018. It is one thing to ask a player to recover from one surgery, but two in the same year is altering all sorts of normal time tables. As of the end of January, Seager was throwing from 120 feet and taking ground balls, but had not yet begun taking batting practice. That timetable scares me enough to push Seager down and look at taking Jurickson Profar (ADP 120) or Amed Rosario (ADP 142) before paying the current market price for Seager. I would be surprised if Seager does not start the season on the disabled list while also needing another break in-season. Give me the under on 500 plate appearances for him in 2019.

Hyun-Jin Ryu is a top-50 pitcher. He is 67th on the board with an ADP of 185, going just in front of the likes of Jon Lester and Jose Quintana while just behind Dallas Keuchel and Yusei Kikuchi. Ryu's medical records are longer than Dalton's in Roadhouse as he has hit the disabled list in each of the past five seasons, three of which involved stays of longer than 100 days. What is tough to overlook is that when he is on the mound, he has been quite good. Last year, he struck out a career-high 28 percent of the hitters he faced with a stellar 23 percent K-BB%. The high strand rate of runners is going to be tough to repeat, but his xwOBA last season was of the 35 best in the league, and nearly identical to his actual wOBA.

He has cut back on his fastball usage while ramping up his new cutter from 2017 while scrapping his slider and going more with curveballs. Simply put, the stuff has not been the problem for him. The fact he has pitched more than 100 innings just once in the past three seasons has been the issue. The Dodgers believe in it as they offered him a qualifying offer at $17.9M, which Ryu quickly jumped at and thankfully did not hurt himself again.

San Diego Padres

Franmil Reyes hits 35 homers. He is currently 57th off the board in NFBC drafts with an ADP of 214. There are few outfielders that can match his raw power as the 6-foot-5, 275, outfielder can hit the ball a very long way when he squares it up. Just look at this or this and try not to get pulled in by the potential of this guy! Reyes had the 21st hardest-hit ball of the 2018 season at 115.4 mph and had the 24th-best average exit velocity on all of his flyballs and line drives.

The problem with Reyes at the moment is that there is no clear path for him to have an everyday role to start the season. The current San Diego outfield depth chart has Wil Myers back in left field, Franchy Cordero in center, and Hunter Renfroe in right field with Manny Margot and Travis Jankowski coming off the bench. Myers is only going somewhere via trade, but everyone else in the group has minor league options so it is an open audition in camp for an outfield role. That said, he did have an offseason minor knee injury that needed a scope, but is expected to be ready for spring training games.

The belief in Reyes gets back to drafting skills, not roles. He has big time power and the ball flies off his bat when he makes contact. He made contact at an increasing rate as the season went on last year while improving his walk rate, which is exactly the type of growth you want to see from young players. Those improvements led to him living a good portion of his time at the major league level well above the average production line.

This prediction needs him in the lineup as an everyday regular, so watch him in spring training to see how he is performing against the other guys in the rotation. His best chance is to unseat Renfroe in right field, which should not be that much of a challenge.

Joey Lucchesi is a top 50 pitcher. He is currently the 77th pitcher off the board with an ADP of 207. He is going just in front of Seranthony Dominguez and Sean Newcomb and just behind Will Smith and Arodys Vizcaino. Lucchesi can throw three pitches, each of which has been graded as better than average by scouts. He struck out 27 percent of the hitters he faced last season with a 19 percent K-BB% - both of which are strong numbers for a starting pitcher. What was not good was his 4.08 ERA and 1.29 WHIP.

Lucchesi's soft underbelly was a problem with the longball as he allowed 23 homers in 130 innings, which translated into a 1.6 HR/9. Despite the three above-average pitch grades, one of every five flyballs he permitted became homers last year. A pitcher that throws four pitches should not have the type of splits Lucchesi had last season, but righties really went to town on him power wise as 22 of the 23 homers came from righties.

This is the reason why Lucchesi is working on a cutter this spring. Last season, he was primarily a two-pitch pitcher against righties and did not use his curveball very often. A cutter will give him something to work both sides of the plate against righties, which was not the case last season when he tended to work away from righties:

Lucchesi is already very tough against lefties, but if he can add this cutter to his repertoire and give him a weapon to work in on righties to keep them honest so they're not looking outer half so much, look out.

San Francisco Giants

Buster Posey finishes outside the top 12 at catcher. Posey is currently ranked 8th at catcher, but has an ADP of 144. Consider the 12th ranked catcher, Jorge Alfaro, is 99 picks behind him at 244. Posey missed nearly 40 games with hip surgery last year and had the worst season of his career since he had his leg destroyed at home plate in 2011. Posey's value at catcher is that he does not always have to catch in order to play, but his surrounding cast is really poor these days. The Giants are fielding an also-ran type lineup right out of the gate and their overall run production is going to be scarce.

The eighth ranking at catcher now is the market dumping on Posey because of this, but I do not believe he is being punished enough. There is no upside to his profile right now, whereas guys behind him have upside to offer. Last year's power numbers were impacted by the injury, but his homer totals had already declined each of the previous four seasons as well. Unless he goes all Yadier Molina on us and changes his swing plane at the plate, it is unlikely we ever see 20 homers from him again. Hope for 15 if you take him where he is at, but that is not in my plans.

Dereck Rodriguez finishes outside the top-150 pitchers. He is currently 119th and slated to have the fourth spot in the rotation for the Giants. He won 6 of 19 starts last year with a 2.81 ERA and a 1.13 WHIP. You still do not want him as I strongly believe a sophomore slump is on the way.

Rodriguez had this weird thing going last season where he struggled out of the gate, but was then very tough to hit the rest of the way:

I believe a lot of that has to do with the newness factor to him and teams not having a full idea of what he was going to do within a contest. It is inexplicable to see a pitcher strike out 16 percent of batters the first time through and then kick that up a few notches to 24 percent the second time through, but then fall to 12 percent when left in the game after that. He had a .305 BABIP the first time through the order, a .254 the second time, and a .198 the third time through. That is quite a bit of batted ball fortune as the game went on that allowed him to put up the numbers he did on the season. He is mostly a contact pitcher that must rely on the defense behind him to get it done, so the upside with Rodriguez is what we saw in 2018. Do you want to see his downside on your roster in 2019? I don't.