Pre-season bold predictions lists are totally overdone these days. I mean, who even does those anyway. So lame. This, on the other hand, is where the real fun is. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the second annual installment of Bret’s bold predictions based on April’s small samples.

This type of exercise provides a different challenge than a standard March bold predictions piece. Not only does it take into account the players who you consider “your guys,” but you also have to maneuver through which April performances are sustainable and which are not. In other words, it’s time to separate the Chris Sheltons from the Cliff Lees.

I planned to write about Kevin Slowey regardless of how he performed on Tuesday night. He is a longtime favorite of mine who has looked great early on with his best work coming in that Tuesday effort against the Mets, as he went eight strong allowing just a single run on four hits with eight strikeouts. He walked nobody. In fact, he has a 14-to-0 K:BB in his last two outings, spanning 14 innings. I won’t fault you for not remembering Slowey.

He was pretty good in his first “full” season with the Twins back in 2008, throwing 160 1/3 innings of 3.99 ERA and 1.15 WHIP ball, along with a sharp 5.1 K:BB. After that, it was a series of disappointments, as he was plagued by injuries and home runs. I remained enamored with the K:BB rates, though. From 2009-2011 (he didn’t pitch at the MLB level in 2012), he had a 5.01 ERA and 1.35 WHIP over 305 2/3 innings, but a sparkling 4.6 K:BB. If you played in any leagues with me, you remember Slowey as “that guy that Paul keeps taking and acting like he got one over on us with his last-round pick.” Like any great setup, I was just waiting for the payoff that was due to come five years later.

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The start to Nate McLouth’s 2013 is one of the more surprising stories in the season’s opening month. The 31-year-old outfielder has a .351/.451/.486 triple-slash line and has already amassed eight stolen bases. That is a stark difference from a guy with a .251/.339/.423 career slash line who has never stolen more than 23 bases in any season. McLouth was a productive fantasy player from ages 25 to 27 before falling into a tailspin in 2010 that continued into 2012. Since landing in Baltimore, McLouth has hit .290/.373/.449 in 325 plate appearances, once again becoming a relevant fantasy option in all formats.

How has he gone from a spare part to a vital cog of a major-league offense?

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I have a confession to make: In fantasy baseball, trading doesn’t come easily to me.

When I started playing fantasy baseball, I took to auctioning relatively quickly. While I enjoyed trading, I frequently wound up on the shorter side of the deal. In some cases, this was simply due to bad luck after the trade, but more often than not, it was because I did a poor job and negotiated myself into an inferior deal.

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Toward the end of April, something funny starts happening to fantasy baseball owners. After one week, nearly every fantasy player looks at the stats, looks at the sample size, and simply dismisses the numbers as the product of a good or a bad week. After three weeks, this mindset changes considerably.

For reasons I cannot comprehend, after about 20 games, fantasy owners start diving into the numbers and drawing conclusions about whether or not their players are going to have good years or bad ones. The difference between 25 plate appearances and 75 plate appearances isn’t significant—yet, in the minds of some, that 50-plat- appearance gap is the difference between an insignificant sample size and a reason to wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat screaming “Giancarlo Stanton, you’re killing me!”

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Three weeks ago, I issued a general message of extreme patience with early-season numbers that are sure to anger and frustrate when they don’t go as expected (WHY CAN’T ALL OF MY GUYS HAVE A 0.50 ERA ALREADY?????). I spoke about some April strugglers from last year and. well, you can look at it via that link if you didn’t catch it the first time. The thing about patience is that it requires repetition of message and upkeep especially now that we have 20-25 innings of work to freak out over, so today, I’m going to talk you off the ledge on some specific pitchers about whom you shouldn’t be worried one bit.

Chris Sale (1-2, 4.50 ERA, 1.15 WHIP)

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Earlier this month, Ben Lindbergh and Jon Shepard wrote an article reviewing the John Dewan rule about how spring training slugging can predict breakouts. Needless to say, the rule did not hold up well to scrutiny—and this should not come as a surprise to most people. Hot and cold performances in spring training are as predictive as Punxsutawney Phil. He did not see a shadow this February, which meant we would have an early spring. Yet, just last night, two more baseball games were snowed out, and many Midwesterners want to turn that groundhog into roadkill.

It has been just under a month since teams left Arizona and Florida to return to their respective home cities. Some players have picked up right where they left off in the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues, for better or for worse, while others have seen their game take a complete 180. Here are some players that fall into each one of those groups (all stats as of the completion of Sunday’s games).

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Last week, one of the commenters on my article on FAAB spending suggested that it’s doubtful that middle relievers make that much of an impact, even in deeper fantasy leagues

Even in an only league, someone's not likely to keep $15 earner Darren O'Day in their lineup weekly if he's not getting save chances.

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Evaluating players based on lineup position is a tricky science. On the one hand, moving up or down in the order can have a dramatic impact on a player’s value. For example: Take a guy batting eighth in a National League lineup, move him up to second, and the result could be as much as a $5 boost. On the other hand, batting lineups are fickle constructs, so sometimes it is best not to take too much stock in where a player is hitting at the moment and focus on his skills instead.

Lineup position also has an obvious compounding effect—that is, players who are already hitting well tend to be the ones that benefit from moving up in the order, and vice versa. Still, if, whether through injury or merit, a player has moved into a more (or less) favorable hitting position, it’s worth reviewing the effects of those changes.

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Over the last three weeks in Tout Wars NL-only, Chris Liss has made quite a splash on the free-agent market. Out of a  $100 budget, Liss has already spent $83. While he has made a few one-dollar bids, $74 of those $83 were invested in two young pitchers: Jose Fernandez was purchased for $22 on March 31, and Tony Cingrani went for a whopping $52 this past Sunday, April 14.

While there is no question regarding Fernandez or Cingrani’s prospect pedigrees, Liss’s wild, early spending did make me wonder whether or not blowing the bulk of your FAAB by mid-April is the right play.

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“Matt Wieters is the reason that I comes before E except after C.”

“Matt Wieters beat cancer… literally, with his bat. There is no more cancer.”

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One of the early criticisms of the Towers of Power Fantasy Hours podcast was that Paul Sporer and I were too agreeable on players and topics. For those that are not aware, Paul and I have known each other since 2000, and I helped introduce him to the advanced metrics of fantasy baseball. Given the amount of baseball discussions we have had throughout the years, it is easy to understand why we are rather agreeable on most players. Unfortunately, that does not hold up when it comes to Clay Buchholz.

Buchholz is a pitcher that Paul doesn’t care for, and he loves to poke fun at the fact that I am a believer in the Red Sox’ right-hander—as evidenced by his handy artwork:

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