Spring is a time of optimism for all, so why not make some bold predictions!

The sun has returned from its winter hibernation and Opening Day is now upon us, so the skies are looking bright for baseball fans once again – except perhaps for those in Yankees pinstripes after the Gerrit Cole news (though no tears will be shed here for the Evil Empire). But for fans of the remaining 29, it’s only natural to be looking at the upcoming season with rose-colored glasses. After all, players have had a full off-season to either recover from injury, learn a new pitch, or visit Driveline for a swing change. Their stock is only going to go up! Maybe growth is in fact linear!

It’s easy to carried away with pie-in-the-sky expectations but that’s half the fun of the preseason – a fresh slate where (*Kevin Garnett voice*) anything is possible! So why not get a little silly with it? After all, nobody is going to come back to hold the prognostication of a Bold Predictions article over your head at season’s end.

1) Vladimir Guerrero Jr. leads MLB in home runs with his first career 50-HR season

For a player with 160 career home runs by the time he’s 26 years old, Vladito sure gets a tough shake eh?

Without a doubt, he’s battled inconsistency at times, particularly when it comes to lifting the ball, but he has never had any issues with his ability to absolutely crush pitches, holding a 52.4% hard-hit rate since the start of 2021. Often times, detractors will quickly jump to pointing at his 48 home run season in 2021 as an outlier, specifically because his home games came at the stadium of their Triple-A affiliate in Dunedin due to Covid restrictions. However, Statcast is able to correct for the dimensions there with an expected home run rate for each MLB park and had Vlad Jr. spent his home games at a different AL East venue, say Camden Yards in Baltimore, he would have been the owner of a xHR of 53 and would then already have a 50 home run season on his ledger of career accolades.

So if he almost did it back in 2021, let’s say he finally gets there in 2025. As mentioned, that year does represent a bit of an outlier, representing his current high-water mark in home runs for a season. Since then, he’s followed that up with totals of 32, 26 and 30 while missing only 11 games over that time span. The culprit for those middling power numbers despite having excellent underlying metrics and being built like a prototypical slugger was really just one thing – launch angle. Over those three seasons, Guerrero Jr. sported a 48.8% groundball rate, which is enough to tranquilize even the most dominant hitters, as his ability to launch the ball at its “sweet spot” (between 8-32 degrees) cratered from a 50th percentile rate in 2021 to a paltry 5th-percentile ranking in 2022. His 2023 season saw some improvement in the category, though he only managed a 28th percentile ranking in his follow-up.

But the numbers in 2024 start to paint a different picture. The first half of the season looked like a continuation of more of the same, with a modest line of .289/.360/.457 and 14 home runs. The player we got in the second half? Well, he came out looking like the $500-million dollar (or more) man he hopes to be. Vlad more than doubled his season home run total, launching 16 in 63 contests – good for a pace of 41 per 162 games – and perhaps most impressively, posting a .376 average to go with a 1.127 OPS.

It almost seems reductive to say “hit less groundballs and you’ll hit more home runs” but that’s exactly what happened here. Midway through the season, Guerrero Jr. managed to shave his groundball percentage from 51.6% to a much more manageable rate of 43.1% in the second stanza. Using his Sweet Spot ranking as a shorthand for whether the change sems legitimate, we see a new career high with a 62nd percentile placement – and I’m sure it would be substantially higher if we were able to split the halves out from each other.

With that kind of growth as his launching pad and a new contract as his fuel, I’m predicting Vladdy goes full rocketship mode and not only leads MLB in home runs but does so with at least 50 for the season.

2) Lars Nootbaar doesn’t make me look foolish, breaks out with a 30 home run campaign

I feel like Lars might be coming close to taking out a restraining order on me, the way I’ve been obsessively writing about him this offseason. Maybe I shouldn’t have said I’d give him a big ol’ smack on the lips on New Years Eve if he stuck to his resolution of lifting the ball but hey, we all have things we regret saying during draft season, right?

For those that don’t follow my writing as closely as I follow my darling Lars Mr. Nootbaar, allow me to acquaint you two and explain what has my heart aflutter my interest piqued.

Nootbaar posted a fairly pedestrian line of .244/.342/.417 with just 12 home runs and seven steals in 2024 but with a hard-hit rate in the 91st percentile, he was expected to provide an output closer to .268/.358/.468 if you instead measure by xBA/xwOBA/xSLG – and even that undersells him, as he exhibited elite ability in plate discipline, carrying a BB% in the 98th percentile and a Chase% in the 100th!

So why exactly were his actual results so much more underwhelming than his expected stats?

Well, if you read my previous speal about Vlad Guerrero Jr., you might be able to make an educated guess if the one bright blue bar above didn’t already give things away. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and that one in particular tells us a lot about Noot – most importantly, he’s got just one glaring flaw that needs to be fixed before he’s able to unlock his true ceiling.

In most situations such as this, the issue at hand is an elevated groundball rate and that rings true in this case as well. Nootbaar currently carries a career groundball percentage of 48.5%, setting a career high in 2024 with a groundball 51.7 percent of the time. Though it’s a smaller sample size than Vlad’s second half hot streak, if we zoom in a little, we do see that something changed for Nootbaar in September. Up to that point, he was running a 53.5% groundball rate but that number plummeted to 44.4% in September. It was also his best month by OPS (.986) and he matched his monthly high with four long balls, so there’s clear correlation and causation here, even if it only showed up for the season’s final month.

If that represents a newly unlocked level for Nootbaar, we can have fun with number extrapolation and point to him now being a potential 30-home run player if he manages to play in all 162 games. Though that part is unlikely, playing time itself certainly won’t be a concern as he’s expected to not only see full-time reps in left field for the Cardinals, but also a handful in center when Victor Scott or Michael Siani aren’t in the lineup. He may not be able to match Guerrero Jr’s raw power output but this is someone who is a single tweak away from becoming an All-Star level player.

3) Jung Hoo Lee leads the National League in Average, but misses just enough games to not qualify for the batting title

At first glance, this prediction probably seems a lot more unlikely than it actually is. After all, Lee hit just .262 in his MLB debut and he’s coming off of shoulder surgery that cost him more than three quarters of the season.

Take a look at some of the publicly available projection systems though and you’ll see why this might actually come to fruition.

Projection System	Projected Average	MLB Rank
Steamer	.295	5th
Depth Charts	.288	10th
ATC	.282	11th
THE BAT X	.286	7th

Sure he’s a bit of an unknown still as he adjusts to MLB but let’s not forget that he managed a .340 average across seven seasons in the KBO. Even correcting for coming Stateside, he still projects to be towards the top of the leaderboard so this seems like a worthwhile bet to make. That said, the rigors of a full season of major league action paired with the recovery from shoulder surgery gives me pause that he’ll make it through the season unscathed and without at least one or two short placements on the injured list. But when he’s on the field, I think the performance will be worthwhile and entirely comparable to that of the presumed Batting Title winner – Luis Arraez.

4) Willson Contreras beats out younger brother William for the top spot among catchers on the player rater

In my long-time dynasty league, the manager who originally picked up William Contreras as a prospect back in the day jokingly started referring to him as “The Superior Contreras” in order to build up his trade value. The name stuck throughout the years, even as it went from a tongue-in-cheek moniker to an entirely accurate descriptor, with William blossoming and becoming the top dog at the position while Willson aged himself from the top half to the back half of the Top 10 catchers.

Part of what gives William such an advantage over his peers is his sheer amount of at-bats. Both William and Willson have seen about 35 appearances at DH per year each the past three seasons, but while William has tallied 60, 108 and 120 games at catcher, Willson has managed just 72, 97 and 51 which severely curtails his chances to rack up counting stats. Just look at how that impacts the value of the two;

	William	Willson
Games Played	393	322
Runs	236	168
Home Runs	60	57
RBI	215	158
AVG	.283	.256
OPS	.835	.828

On ratios alone, they’re strikingly similar. But how exactly is Willson expected to reverse the trend and catch up in plate appearances when he’s entering his age-33 season?

Turns out, for a chance to become the #1 catcher in fantasy, you have to ditch… actually being a catcher. Contreras is now expected to stash away his catching gear for good and take up the open first base position for the Cardinals while rotating through at designated hitter. Suddenly, a 150 game season – and the at-bats that come with it – seems within the range of possibilities as it certainly doesn’t hurt to be able to avoid the wear-and-tear that comes with being behind the plate on a daily basis.

This isn’t meant as a neg towards William in any way, so let’s say he finishes runner-up to his big brother. Would certainly be a fun chapter in their sibling rivalry!

5) Bowden Francis continues his breakout, posts an ERA below 3.25 and a WHIP below 1.10

Nine starts. That’s all we’re really working with when evaluating this new-and-improved version of Bowden Francis. Not only that, his breakout came when he was already 27 years old and he increased his career innings tally to a grand total of 140.2 pitched in the Majors. A dangerous profile to hitch your wagon to, most certainly. That said… I’m all in!

A change in pitch repertoire can make a world of difference in how we evaluate pitchers and that switch can sometimes (literally) happen overnight. All it takes is finding the right pairing of pitches to tunnel, or switching a grip, or changing an arm slot, to elevate a pitcher from afterthought to All-Star and that’s the case with Francis.

Let’s take a look at the differences in output between his two different arsenals;

	Before Aug 6th	After Aug 6th
Four Seam %	53.2%	49.7%
Splitter %	12.9%	23.4%
Sinker %	0.1%	5.4%
Slider %	6.2%	11.9%
Cutter %	27.6%	9.6%
ERA (FIP)	5.64 (5.61)	1.53 (3.42)
WHIP	1.46	0.53
K/9	7.25	8.54
BB/9	3.02	1.07

Turns out that dumping your cutter for a splitter is the key cog in finding success! Okay, not actually – but it sure did help Francis and it seems largely sustainable as he is clearly able to control and command the pitches in a much better fashion than before. Walk rates rarely improve from just deciding to throw more strikes so, for them to stick, it requires a material change such as this to take place and since one has, I’m far more willing to buy in.

It’s easy to get caught up in the noise that comes with a late-season push from a starting pitcher. Are they simply facing teams who aren’t interested in competing and are just playing out the stretch? Is it just small sample size randomness? In this case, faced a reasonable slate of opponents, including matchups against Boston (twice), Texas, Philly, Baltimore and the Mets. He did benefit from matchups against the Cubs and Angels (twice) but not enough to knock him in any fashion.

Though the ceiling for him isn’t the highest, I believe Francis is almost a sure-fire lock for a place among the Top 50 starters at year’s end and if everything breaks right, he could find himself in the Top 25.

6) Hayden Birdsong wins a rotation spot and holds it down for the entirety of the season, on the strength of an ERA around 3.75 and a WHIP of 1.25

(Update: Nothing like bricking one of your predictions before the season even starts! It seems Landon Roupp has instead won the Giants’ fifth starter role, while Birdsong roosts in the bullpen instead. I continue to like him long term and believe the ratios are within range – he’s still only one injury to the rotation away from proving me very right.)

This prediction may not have been made if not for the recent news that the Giants’ fifth starter battle is down to just Birdsong and Landon Roup, after Kyle Harrison was sent to Triple-A. With the path to playing time now slightly more clear for him, I’m putting my chips on Birdsong running (flying?) away with the job.

Birdsong, like the majority of young hurlers these days, is known for his strong strikeout ability and elevated walk rate allowed. In the minors last year, Birdsong struck out 31.1% of batters he faced but also gave up more than four walks per nine innings. Still, that wildness didn’t stop San Francisco from giving him a run in the Major League rotation where he showcased that his skill in getting batters to whiff would translate against pro hitters, tallying 88 punchouts in his 72 innings. Of course, his free passes allowed put a damper on his overall statistics, with a 1.39 WHIP and an ERA of 4.75 backed by a 4.65 xERA.

As I joked above, player growth is definitely not linear but there’s reason to believe Birdsong has made some positive strides over the off-season if you’re willing to buy into the fact that he’s yet to allow a walk in his 12 innings of action this Spring Training. Preseason results can be a divisive topic in the baseball world and it seems Birdsong is a divisive player in the world of projection systems as well. While the “old guard” of projections largely feel Birdsong will put forth an ERA between 4.20 and 4.50, two of the newer systems (OOPSY and ppERA) are more bullish, with identical expectations of a 3.89 ERA.

A 3.89 ERA already seems relatively bold, but if there are projection systems calling for it, I have to go at least one step further and plant my flag on the prediction of a 3.75 ERA to go with a WHIP below 1.25. Let’s hope I’m still singing such a sweet tune come September!

7) Porter Hodge leads the Cubs in saves while striking out 80+ batters

The Cubs bullpen was a bit of a mess last year, so Hodge’s 1.88 ERA and 52 strikeouts in 43 innings stood out from the pack and made him the presumptive closer for 2025 – right up until the off-season trade for Ryan Pressly.

Let’s focus first on Hodge, who was particularly effective last season after Chicago traded away Hector Neris, striking out 18 across 13.2 innings of 1.32 ERA ball, while also tightening his grip on the closer role by converting eight of his nine save opportunities – most on the team during that time.

Led by a devastating sweeper that allowed a microscopic .070 BAA while getting hitters to whiff 51.8% of the time, Hodge posted elite metrics (95th percentile or better) in xERA, xBA, K% and Barrel% over the course of the season, although he didn’t pitch enough to qualify for the leaderboards. The only major blemish in his profile is his walk rate of 11.6%, which is understandable for a young reliever – though still something he will need to improve upon to maintain consistency.

Considering Pressly is now 36 and posted ratios nowhere close to Hodge’s, it’s safe to assume that the only reason that Pressly is currently tabbed for the lion’s share of ninth inning duties is because of baseball managers’ favorite pseudoscience – the always nebulous closing experience. But if we’re going to go down the pseudoscience route, allow me to join in the fun and play the role of armchair expert.

In most situations, the ego of the incumbent is paramount in deciding when to pull the trigger on a role change but we’ve already seen Pressly put his self-importance to the side in allowing himself to be demoted from the closer role in Houston just last year. Then, following that, he showed the humility of waiving his no-trade clause in order to go to Chicago. Maybe it’s a stretch to read into that level of psychology from afar but I don’t think it’s out of the question to think the same thing could happen with the Cubs either!

Regardless of whether Hodge does end up getting a proper look at the closer role, I believe he’ll give you somewhere in the range of 60 innings with 80 or more strikeouts. If he can also claim his share of saves, he’ll be a potential Top-10 option at the position.

8) Camilo Doval wins back the Giants’ closer role, saves 20 or more games

As much as the previous prediction was a bet on talent winning through, I’m certainly not naïve to the machinations of how a major league bullpen hierarchy is decided. More often than not, showing that you have previously been able to close out games is usually enough to at least get your foot in the door and the length of your leash is often commensurate with the length of your closing experience.

So let’s place a bet on the opposite side of the spectrum and say that, despite a demotion to Triple-A last year, Camilo Doval eventually returns to his spot atop the pecking order in The Bay and closes out 20+ games for the G-Men.

Relievers are certainly liable to suddenly fall off the cliff without much notice but Doval had a fairly long track record of success prior to 2024, posting a 2.77 ERA, 1.16 WHIP and 204 strikeouts in 162.1 innings. Walks were an issue (3.6 per nine), but nothing to be particularly worried about. Then 2025 struck and his control largely abandoned him, suddenly allowing almost six walks per nine innings and ballooning his ERA to 4.88 – a career worst mark.

Even with the control issues, his FIP of 3.71 wasn’t disastrous and his xERA of 3.44 points to him doing fairly well with hard-contact. He also managed to slightly raise his strikeout rate from the previous year, so it was really just his walk rate that needs to be focused on. He’ll need to compete with Ryan Walker for the top spot in the pen but even in a year where Doval lost the role for most of the season, Walker only managed 10 saves, instead being leaned upon more as a multi-inning weapon. My belief is that once Doval proves himself once more, the team will go back to using Walker in that role again, giving Doval the opportunity for 20 or more saves in 2025.

9) Ryan Mountcastle finally plays up to his peripherals, hits 25+ home runs for the first time since 2021

It’s always nice when a player who’s underperforming their expected stats gets a nice little boost from the fences being moved in – and that’s exactly what we’re looking at with Ryan Mountcastle and Camden Yards for the upcoming season.

Mountcastle has been an enigmatic player since breaking onto the season with 33 home runs in his first full season of MLB experience. Setting such a high bar, only to follow it up with declining home run totals of 22, 18 and 13 the past three years is undoubtedly a disappointing trend for both Orioles fans and fantasy managers alike. In that time though, Mountcastle has routinely been among the players who most underperforms his xStats.

	AVG	xAVG	wOBA	xWOBA	SLG	xSLG
2021	.255	.245	.335	.326	.487	.457
2022	.250	.277	.316	.362	.423	.509
2023	.270	.273	.333	.356	.452	.503
2024	.271	.272	.316	.332	.425	.445

 

Looking at this chart, we notice that the only year in which he outperformed his peripherals was 2021 – the same season he hit 33 home runs. After that, he has yet to have a season in which he didn’t underperform all three statistics. Something changed between 2021 and 2022, but what?

(Graph per FanGraphs' Michael Baumann)

There’s a lot of noise at play in this chart of HR/FB at Camden Yards since 2015 – we probably saw upwards of ten different baseball types used over this time period, including the 2019 juiced balls and the Aaron Judge home run chase balls – but there’s no ignoring that cliff that occurs between 2021 and 2022. Isn’t that interesting?

It’s almost certainly no coincidence either, as that was when Orioles ownership moved the fences back in an attempt to provide a more neutral-leaning ballpark for both pitchers and hitters, with the left field earning the dubbing of . But as they say, chicks dig the long ball – so the fences are now coming back in, although not quite to their previous homer-friendly levels. Still, even a bit of a dead-cat bounce from the current level would provide a nice cushion of value for right-handed hitters in Baltimore, Mountcastle chief among them. As much as I’d like to predict a new career high, I think we’re safer off placing a long shot bet for somewhere between 25-30 home runs instead.

10) Mitch Keller finishes the season ranked outside the top-75 starting pitchers

This predictions piece has largely been one of positive spin for the players involved but I can’t keep the negativity at bay for the entire time so allow me one parting shot on our way out – I simply do not understand the fantasy appeal of Mitch Keller!

A year ago, he was an afterthought in most drafts, owner of a career ERA of 4.71 and a 1.45 WHIP. But at least he gets an above-average amount of strikeouts to offset those anchor ratios, right? Wrong. His 687 Ks between 2019-2023 rank as the 42nd highest, sandwhiching him between Jon Gray and Zach Eflin.

But somehow, the public perception seems to have changed after a 2024 season that saw him post a xERA of 4.31 (34th percentile), xBA of .249 (34th) and Whiff% of 21.5% (16th). Meanwhile, his WHIP of 1.30 placed him with the 10th highest mark among qualified starters. It wasn’t a case of bad luck either, as Keller saw a noticeable dip in his quality of pitching “stuff”, with his Pitching+ metric dropping from 103 in 2023 to 96 in 2024.

Health and the durability to consistently pitch more than 150 innings per year is an underrated skill in this ERA of baseball but the ability to accumulate high counting totals only gets you so far when specialist pitchers are bountiful. I feel fairly confident in saying that Keller is unlikely to see the bottom drop out to the point that he gets saddled with an ERA in the 5’s at any point, but I also don’t see the potential for ERA upside that lands him in the 3’s instead.

I’d much rather take a flier (pun very much intended) on Birdsong!

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