Just in time for (the second) Opening Day of 2012, we’re offering forty-five bold predictions for the 2012 baseball season. Feel free to add your own projections in the comments section, and we’ll revisit them in October.
1. Giancarlo Stanton will hit fifty homeruns. While I’m not sure how the gigantic structure in centerfield will affect balls hit in the air in Miami, I’m a believer in Giancarlo Stanton. His walk rate improved (and his strikeout rate declined) in 2011, and I expect those trends will continue for the twenty-three year old. If his contact rate has a similar improvement, Stanton could be in the running for NL MVP.
2. Dustin Pedroia will have a batting average higher than .380 at some point past May 1. He’s the prohibitive favorite to lead the AL in runs scored, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he challenges for the batting title.
3. Zack Greinke and Yovani Gallardo will win 40 games between them. And one of them will win the Cy Young award. On the other hand…
4. Ian Kennedy and Daniel Hudson will win fewer than 25 games. The two Arizona pitchers combined for 37 wins last year…their total will decline by at least a dozen victories in 2012.
5. Yu Darvish will be moved to the bullpen for part of the season. While I’m confident that Darvish will be a successful pitcher in the American League, the difficulty of his transition from Japan to Arlington, coupled with the depth of the Rangers pitching, will have the Big Yu working out of the pen for some portion of 2012.
6. C.J. Wilson will win the AL Cy Young Award. Heads-up: Arlington doesn’t just distort hitting. C.J. Wilson had a solid ERA of 3.69 in Texas, but his 2.31 road ERA suggests that he’s a top-tier pitcher. Considering, too, that his ERA in the second-half was 2.56, and that he’ll be playing on an excellent defensive team that should provide plenty of run support, I would not be surprised if Wilson collects the Cy Young in November. (And if you’re looking an extra stat-y counter to this prediction, please read
this excellent article over at fangraphs.com).
7. Dee Gordon will be shipped down to the minors at some point during the season. There has been a lot of movement on Gordon in fantasy drafts: he’s gone from a deep sleeper to a player being drafted in the top-100 in baseball. While his speed is amazing, an on-base percentage in the low .300’s will have the Dodgers looking elsewhere for a shortstop.
8. Jay Bruce, Michael Morse, JJ. Hardy, and Ian Kinsler will not hit 30 homers. All of them cleared the bar in 2011…none of them will clear it in 2012. On the other hand...
9. Michael Cuddyer, Josh Willingham, and Chris Davis will hit 30+ homers. Usually a move to Minnesota trends to cut a player’s home run totals, but the underrated Josh Willingham hit 15 of his 29 homers in Oakland last year. Hitting behind Tulo and Car-Go should help Cuddyer in the thin Denver air. And Chris Davis will finally get regular playing time opposite his Three-True-Outcomes alter-ego, the superlative Mark Reynolds. Speaking of Reynolds…
10. Mark Reynolds will NOT lead the league in strikeouts in 2012. This qualifies as bold because Reynolds has held the title four year running. I don’t think Baltimore will give him enough at-bats to defend the title. The door is open for you, Austin Jackson.
11. Danny Espinosa will have a 30/30 season. I love Danny Espinosa…he’s a player with one obvious flaw (tons of strikeouts) that tends to obscure his many positives. Like excellent power. And good speed. And a good walk rate. And solid defense in the middle of the infield. I’m expecting big things from Espinosa in 2012.
12. Adam Dunn will retire in mid-season. This is just a hunch, of course. A lot of folks are high on a Dunn bounce-back, and judging by his excellent spring training, Dunn has remembered how to make contact. But last year was miserable for the Big Donkey…if the downward spiral continues, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him walk away from baseball.
13. Ichiro Suzuki will hit 20 homeruns. I was excited to see Ichiro hitting 3rd for the Mariners in Japan, and I’m confident that 2012 will see Suzuki return to his .300-hitting ways. I’m thinking that he’ll have a spike in power this year, passing his career-high of 15 homers in 2005.
14. The Marlins will have better starting pitching than the Phillies. Sure, Halladay, Lee, and Hamels are three of the best pitchers in the league. But a returning Josh Johnson, added to Anibal Sanchez and Second City exports Mark Buehrle and Carlos Zambrano, could be enough to push the Miami rotation past Philadelphia in 2012.
15. No Yankee regular will hit .300 in 2012. Cano was the only regular over .300 in 2011, and he just cleared the bar (.302). The only other player close to .300 was Jeter, who posted a .297 batting average. Which leads to our next prediction…
16. The Yankees will still lead the majors in Runs Scored. Just goes to show that batting average isn’t everything. And while we’re on the Yankees….
17. Brett Gardner will lead all Yankee players in WAR. That’s hitters and pitchers. This probably necessitates CC Sabathia and Cano having down years, but I think Gardner will continue to be one of the quiet greats in baseball.
18. Someone on the Diamondbacks will have a 30-30 season. And it won’t be Justin Upton. It’ll be Chris Young, who posted a 27/28 season in 2010. Young, who has posted back-to-back seasons with a fWAR of 4.6, is one of the most underrated players in the National League.
19. Justin Verlander’s ERA will be over 4.00. I love Verlander, but I think he’s going to be this year’s Greinke. Last year, Greinke had a 3.83 ERA for the Brewers, despite some amazing peripheral numbers (10.5 strikeouts per nine innings, a xFIP of 2.56). Most of Greinke’s trouble was a high rate of fly balls going out of the yard, but defense was a factor, too. And while Prince and Miggy are the kind of hitters a pitcher loves to have on his side, I imagine that the Detroit defense is going to give away some runs in 2012.
20. Matt Moore will outpitch Stephen Strasburg. I expect both pitchers to be excellent in 2012, with Moore being just a tad better than his NL counterpart.
21. The AL playoff teams will be the Red Sox, Angels, Royals, Rays, and Rangers. Good news for Kansas City.
22. Jamie Moyer will win 300 games. Baring a 33-win season in 2012, this is a prediction won’t come true in 2012. But I think Moyer is going to be productive in 2012, winning 10-14 games. That would put his career mark at around 280 wins…about two seasons away from 300. I think he gets there.
23. Rajai Davis will lead the American League in stolen bases. The prohibitive favorite is Gardner, but I’m thinking that Rajai Davis will have a comeback year at the top of the Blue Jays order.
24. Eric Hosmer will have a better season than Albert Pujols. Suffice to say, I’m a big believer in Eric Hosmer, who has had an epic spring. It’s going to be a fun summer in Kansas City.
25. Brandon McCarthy will lead the American League in ERA. He will also lead the league in fewest walks per 9 innings. And he will challenge Logan Morrison for most tweets.
26. Joe Mauer will play 150 games, and will be the Joe Mauer of old. Which is to say: he’ll contend for the American League batting title, and be one of the very best players in the game.
27. Jemile Weeks will outperform his brother Richie Weeks in all five fantasy categories. Jemile Weeks is fast becoming one of my favorite players in baseball….he’s one of those players (like Robbie Alomar and Ian Kinsler) who seems to be everywhere during a game…running down pop-ups in the outfield, stealing bases, getting chippy with umpires. I don’t know that anyone uses the word ‘sparkplug’ to describe players, but it’s an apt phrase for Weeks.
28. 2012 will be a lot like 2011 for Jason Heyward. While I still expect Heyward to be an All-Star-level player, I’m not confident that 2012 will be a breakthrough year for him. I don’t generally put a lot of weight in spring training statistics, but Heyward has struck out 22 times in 75 at-bats. I think 20 homeruns and a batting average of .270 is the likely level of production from Heyward, though his defense has certainly looked good in the early goings.
29. Mike Trout will have a starting job by May. And he’ll win Player-of-the-Month trophy by the end of the year. If I could take one player to build a team around, I’d take Mike Trout. Without hesitation.
30. Hunter Pence will have an MVP-level season. Just a hunch. here…Pence’s statistics following his trade to Philly, stretched out over 162 games, tally to 105 runs scored, 33 homers, 105 RBI, and a .324 batting average. Batting cleanup should see Pence cross the century mark in RBI’s for the first time in his career.
31. The Cardinals will have a historically great outfield for at least one game this season. At some point the Cardinals will play Beltran, Berkman, and Holliday in the outfield together. When it happens, St. Louis fans will be treated to one of the best outfield trios in recent history: three players who are candidates for Cooperstown. Coming into 2012, the WAR of those three players is 60.8 (Beltran), 51.2 (Berkman), and 30.9 (Holliday)….that averages to a career WAR of 47.6, which is near the career marks of Larry Doby, Bernie Williams, and Fred Lynn.
32. The NL MVP will go to Hanley Ramirez. HanRam will post a 30-30 season, and challenges for the NL batting title.
33. Johnny Cueto will get votes for the NL Cy Young Award. Did you know he had a 2.31 ERA last year? I didn’t know that. I pay no attention to the Reds. It’s starting to be a problem.
34. Andrew McCutchen will out-WAR his teammates. For the second year in a row, McCutchen will post a higher cumulative WAR than all the other Pittsburgh non-pitchers combined. Whether it will be a case of McCutchen being really good, or the rest of the Pirates being really, really bad, I’m not sure.
35. Geovanny Soto will Cubs, NL catchers in homeruns, RBI’s. With Aramis gone, the competition has thinned out considerable….I think Soto will squeak past Soriano and whoever wins the 1B battle to lead the Cubbies in the slugger categories.
36. Bobby Valentine will win Manager of the Year. I’m excited that Boston hired Valentine: he’s a good counter to Francona’s style of management, and I am confident that the Red Sox will perform well under Valentine in 2012. Actually, this isn’t a bold pick at all: Valentine already has a good storyof why he should be MotY…all he needs is the Sox to be successful (as they should be). Voters will give Valentine all kinds of credit for ‘turning around the culture’ of the clubhouse, and he’ll get the trophy (or whatever it is they give to Managers of the Year).
37. Bryce Harper will have his first bad season of baseball in 2012. Whether he plays the bulk of 2012 in AAA or the majors, I think Harper is in for a season of difficult adjustments. He struggled in his short stint in AA ball, and that’s a long ways away from facing the Phillies staff on a regular basis. He’s going to be a superstar, but I think he’ll struggle some in 2012.
38. The NL playoff teams will be the Giants, Marlins, Brewers, Phillies, and Padres. I suppose the Padres are the biggest surprise here. A big factor will be…
39. San Diego will lead in the NL in runs scored in road games. Petco is a tough park, but the Padres have a better lineup than most people realize. The addition of Yonder Alonso will give the Padres one of the best offenses in the NL, though no one will actually realize it.
40. The second most valuable 1B in the NL will be…James Loney. With Pujols and Fielder taking their talents to DH-land, there are few challengers to Joey Votto. As I’ve stated
elsewhere, I’m optimistic about Loney in 2012.
41. Jose Altuve will hit .257 with 21 doubles, 13 homeruns, 21 steals, and 49 walks. Savvy Houston fans will recognize that those are Craig Biggio’s numbers from 1989, his first full year in the majors. This will give them exactly one positive from their last season in the National League.
42. Mariano Rivera will lose his job as the closer for the New York Yankees. And David Robertson will take over. This has to happen eventually, right? He can’t go on forever.
43. Brandon Belt and Pablo Sandoval will be the best 3-4 hitters in the National League. This requires the Giants to actually play Belt in the major leagues, but I’m optimistic that Belt’s huge spring has made believers out of the lever-pullers in the San Francisco dugout and front office.
44. Ian Kinsler, Nelson Cruz, and Josh Hamilton will play less than 360 games in 2012. When they’re healthy, all three Rangers are capable of putting up MVP numbers. But it’s rare for any of the three to make it through the season without a trip to the DL. 360 games is an average of just 120 games per player…I’m taking the under for 2012.
45. Adrian Gonzalez will win the Triple Crown. The buzz is that Gonzalez wasn’t ever healthy in 2011…I think the drop in his power numbers at least hints at this, though that decline was masked by his .338 batting average. I think the batting average is for real….Gonzalez’s opposite-field approach is perfectly suited for hitting at Fenway…and I expect a jump in his homerun total in 2012.
Dave Fleming is a writer living in Wellington, New Zealand. He welcomes comments, questions, and suggestions here and at dfleming1986@yahoo.com