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November 15, 2012

Resident Fantasy Genius

Reviewing Our 10 Bold Fantasy Predictions

by Derek Carty

Before the season began, I went on record with 10 Bold Fantasy Predictions. More a fun exercise than anything else, “bold” was defined as events that had no more than a 20 percent chance of occurring. Today I wanted to take a look back on these crazy and potentially ill-fated predictions to see which worked out and which couldn’t have been farther from reality.

Clayton Kershaw maintains a BB/9 below 2.75
Noting his “shift away from a tougher-to-control, big-breaking curve and toward a tighter pitch that he can spot more easily in the zone,” I predicted that Kershaw would keep most of his 2011 control gains (2.1 BB/9 following years of 3.6 and 4.8 BB/9). Indeed, Kershaw’s 2.5 BB/9 was very good and well within the limits of this prediction.

Danny Duffy is a Top 25 AL-only starting pitcher this year
Pitching beyond the middle of May might have helped Duffy in achieving this one. Duffy’s great stuff translated into plenty of strikeouts (9.1 K/9) in the six starts that he made, but all of those walks (5.9 BB/9) might have made it hard for him to be a Top-25 starter anyway.

Tommy Hanson makes fewer than 10 starts
Hanson experienced the worst season of his major-league career in 2012, but he made 31 starts. The prediction was wrong, but I’m happy I stayed away from him.

Edwin Encarnacion goes 30/100
Oh yeah. With 42 home runs and 110 RBI, Encarnacion easily makes this one a big win. I already recapped his season here, so I won’t spend any more time on it.

Justin Upton goes 40/25 and is a top-five pick next year
Let’s just ignore this one and move on…