Collette Calls: 2023 AL West Bold Predictions

If you are new to this annual series, the premise for this series is most recently outlined here. The ADP data listed below is from 1/13/23-2/13/23 in 43 Draft Champions leagues. 

Houston Astros

Jose Abreu (ADP 91, Min 60, Max 112) is a top-five first baseman

Abreu is currently sixth, but he's also over four rounds behind Matt Olson, who has an ADP of 47. Abreu leads off the second tier of first baseman but I believe he will finish the year in the top tier. Abreu is currently projected to hit fifth for Houston in between Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker, although it would be surprising to see Tucker hit that low all season. Tucker is worth mentioning here because he had 70 RBIs in 336 plate appearances in the 5th spot in the Houston lineup last year while hitting .258/.328/.500. Is that type of slash line achievable for Abreu? Why not? We know he can do that in the average and OBP departments with ease, and the slugging should be there for him in Houston as well given his ability to hit the ball with power to all fields.

StatCast shows Abreu would have hit 22 homers had he played in Houston last year, which is seven more than he ended up hitting over the course of the full season with Chicago. These types of spray charts do not account for the height of the wall, but one can easily see where seven more homers would come into play assuming Abreu uses the exact same approach to hitting and isn't sucked into targeting those cozy Crawford Boxes using old man pull skills:

It's not inconceivable Abreu does so given that we're just one year removed from seeing him hit 27 of his 30 homers to the pull side:

Father time always wins in baseball, but I believe this 36-year-old slugger isn't being properly valued this offseason. Houston has never had a player of this age hit 30 homers and drive in 100 runners, and only 14 players in history have done so at this age for any team, with the most recent example being Nelson Cruz in 2019. Abreu has the abilities and situation to be the 15th this season. 

Jose Urquidy (ADP 286, Min 207, Max 328) is not a top-150 pitcher

All of you Hunter Brown fans need a non-injury pathway for him to join the rotation. While it's easy to forecast yet another Lance McCullers Jr. stint on the IL, nobody wishes injury upon a pitcher. If we look at the soft underbelly of the projected five-man rotation, Urquidy sticks out as the guy most in danger of being relegated to long relief should he stumble while Brown either shoves in relief or in Triple-A and the fans begin clamoring for the kid.

I like Urquidy as a pitcher, but his career 1.5 HR/9 rate is a bad fit for his home ballpark. He has a tolerable 1.3 HR/9 on the road, but a 1.6 HR/9 at home. Thankfully, he's stingy with the walks, so the homers don't kill his ratios as much as they do for other pitchers. His command and excellent changeup allow him to neutralize lefties, who hit .201 against him, but righties hit him at a .260 clip and have a 1.9 HR/9 rate against him for his career. Urquidy would be better suited pitching in Camden Yards than he is Minute Maid Field, especially when a team is stacking righties against him. 

All of this is to say that it isn't tough to envision a path where Urquidy is moved out of the rotation for the fantastic upside in Brown. Houston would certainly value Urquidy's experience on the roster as an insurance policy for Brown, but that potential outcome would severely impact his fantasy value as he's currently the 109th pitcher off the board by ADP. While our projections are favorable for him, the aggregate projections are not. 

Los Angeles Angels

Anthony Rendon (ADP 246, Min 199, Max 288) is a top-12 third baseman

Rendon may very well be hurt again by the time you read this prediction, but I want to give him one more chance because he's in a great spot to have a big year. Rendon last had a monster fantasy season in 2019 and has since dealt with Covid as well as back-to-back lost seasons due to injuries. Yet his ability to hit with contact and accept his walks has remained intact. He enters 2023 slated to hit cleanup behind Taylor Ward, Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani with Hunter Renfroe hitting behind him, making him extremely well-placed in the lineup to perhaps drive in 100+ runs for the third time in his 10-year career.

Rendon missed most of the last two seasons with leg issues as well as a wrist injury which eliminated most of last season. This is why a player who was hovering around the first round in 2020 drafts is now the 22nd player off the board at third base just three seasons later, even with the position having more question marks than sure things this winter. Eugenio Suarez currently occupies the 12th spot on the chart and is going 65 picks in front of Rendon. I know many of us have been absolutely torched by Rendon these past two seasons after betting on a rebound that never came, but his current market price is practically begging for us to give him one more chance, hoping that his body will somehow not betray him. 

I don't have any sort of statistical proof to validate this prediction other than the fact that we know what this player is capable of when everything is right with him physically. I refuse to believe one player can be this medically unlucky for a fourth consecutive season. Just don't roster both him and Byron Buxton on the same team.

Carlos Estevez (ADP 259, Min 211, Max 330) finishes as a top-10 closer

Pitching in Coors Field just sucks, but thankfully Estevez relocated over the winter. He had a 2.5 percent K-BB% in Denver last season but held the league to a .190 batting average and a .215 BABIP in 28.2 innings of work. On the road, his K-BB% jumped up to 24.1 percent but the league hit .229 off him and he allowed five of his seven homers. It was almost like he was two different pitchers based on the situation, something he no longer needs to worry about. 

The 24.1 percent K-BB% on the road was easily the best of his six-year career with the Rockies as he improved his strikeout rate on the road for a third consecutive season while also lowering his walk rate over that same time. The biggest difference was the league did not hit over .290 against him on the road as they had each of the previous two seasons. Last season was the first time since 2016 that Estevez had a HR/9 rate below 1.0 at home, but he's also seen his strikeout rate at Coors decline each of the past four seasons from 27 percent to 24 percent to 20 percent and finally 17 percent, while his road strikeout rate did nearly the exact opposite.

The point here is that the stuff is better than the overall numbers may lead you to believe because half of his workload came in unfavorable conditions for his style of pitching. The Angels have an open audition for closer with no incumbent, so whichever guy stands out in the spring will get the first stab at the job. I'll take Estevez's upside over anyone else in that pen right now. 

Oakland Athletics

Zack Gelof (ADP 747, Min 645, Max 738) is baseball's version of Brock Purdy

What I mean by this prediction is that his ADP is three spots away from being outside a 15-team Draft Champions format, but Gelof is going to have some fantasy relevancy in 2023. Asking him to be as useful as Brandon Drury, who was taken in just two of 321 drafts last season, is incredibly greedy, but Gelof should certainly have an opportunity to do something in Oakland this year as they try to piece together a competitive roster and avoid a 110-loss season. 

Gelof is a non-roster invitee to camp who has but 51 plate appearances above Double-A ball in the Oakland organization. He has a .287/.371/.490 line in their organization after hitting .316/.396/.478 as a collegian at the University of Virginia. He's stolen as many as 13 bases in a minor-league season and is 23-for-27 in his minor-league career and 98-for-115 in organized baseball. Gelof played both third base and second base in the organization last season and spent 21 games at second base in the Arizona Fall League this winter as well. 

Tony Kemp currently occupies second base on the roster but is also a free agent after this season and is very likely to be moved off the roster during the year. He also sees a fair amount of time in the outfield where there could be another vacancy should Ramon Laureano be dealt. Simply put, the opportunities will be there for Gelof to come up and get playing time if he shows he can handle upper-level pitching this year. He's had his issues making contact as a pro but has also been very accepting of his walks, so he could hit at the top or bottom of this questionable lineup once he makes the roster. This is a name for the deeper leagues, since they rarely get any attention in these pieces. 

Dany Jimenez (ADP 568, Min 365, Max 713) leads Oakland in saves

It is tough sledding to get saves for a bad team, but it can be done. Bryan Harvey once saved 45 games for a 64-98 Marlins club, but a 64-win season would be on the extreme for what most predict Oakland to do this year as the club enters their 12th year of a five-year rebuild plan. Jimenez saw his 2022 season end early due to a strained right shoulder which did not require surgery but did limit him to 34.1 innings of work. He had three wins and 11 saves in 34 games before the shoulder shut him down, showing enough skill to get the job done for a bottom-feeding club.

Jimenez is no spring chicken, having turned 29 in the offseason, but he's worked all of 35.2 innings at the big-league level. He originally started in the Toronto organization before making it to the Bay Area organizations and struck out 33 percent of the batters he faced as a minor-leaguer with a 24 percent K-BB%. Jimenez isn't even arb-eligible for another two seasons, and even by that time would be trade bait for the club anyhow given their track record with relievers. Like many in the land of misfits and castoffs, Jimenez is an unusual late-inning reliever who features a slider, but who can blame him? The league hit .095 off his slider (.126 xBA) with a 48 percent whiff rate. The fastball was hit at a .308 rate and clearly used to set up the slider, as it was otherwise a rather ineffective pitch. He tried throwing a cutter, but did so only three times.

Where things get incredibly interesting are the names which pop up on his similarity list: Carl Edwards Jr. (meh), but then Michael Fulmer, Alek Manoah and Sonny Gray are all in his top five. It bears repeating that no pitcher on this roster has an ADP inside the top 300. Their highest-ranked pitcher is Trevor May, as many are looking at him for the closing role. I am zagging and taking the guy going 250 picks later who isn't pitching on a one-year deal who's likely living on a month-to-month lease in Alameda because he knows he is getting traded before August. 

Seattle Mariners

Kolten Wong (ADP 249, Min 211, Max 292) is a top-15 second baseman

The move from Milwaukee to Seattle is a push for his homer total as his expected homers in Seattle would have equaled his actual homer total in Milwaukee this year. Where I believe things will be different for him this year is his projected spot in the lineup. Wong has a career .334 on-base percentage, ranging anywhere from .335 to .361 over the past four seasons, yet he's currently projected to hit fifth in the lineup after four righties: Julio Rodriguez, Ty France, Eugenio Suarez and Teoscar Hernandez. Wong has a higher projected OBP than two of those hitters, and managers rarely like to stack that many righties together in a lineup unless they have no choice (like Toronto last season).

Wong has the OBP chops to hit first or second in that lineup, and if he did, the projected run totals above are low even if he is platooned with the likes of Dylan Moore against tough lefties. Wong has a .272/.355/.437 line against righties over the past four seasons and has gone 49 of 62 on the bases in that time. When a righty is on the mound, he has the ability to do the job, as he demonstrated in 2021 when he hit .274/.337/.452 with 14 homers and 10 steals as the primary leadoff guy for MIlwaukee. It was the one time in his career where he was mostly left in that spot and he handled it well. 

Wong's current market value isn't projecting his potential upside should he assume a higher spot in this talented lineup, so buy in while the getting is good because his price could move quickly if Scott Servais makes an early announcement indicating a plan to move Wong's leftiness and baserunning up in the lineup. 

George Kirby (ADP 98, Min 81, Max 117) is a top-20 pitcher

This prediction is banking on wins and ratios to carry the day because the strikeouts and possibly even the volume will not be there. That said, I freaking love this kid this year as I believe he could take a big step forward much like Kyle Hendricks did in 2016 with a similar skillset. Kirby pitches off a fastball which he commands extremely well and gets more swings and misses with that pitch than any of his six, yes six, offerings. In fact, the league has the toughest time putting that pitch into play, hitting .221 against it while everything else was .266 or higher. If we look at his fastball, sinker and slider, each of those offerings had an xBA under .210 as well. 

If he could get one more pitch to step up to the fastballs/slider combination, he could get dangerous in a hurry. We're talking about a guy who has walked 43 professional hitters in 247.1 innings of work and while scattering 18 homers. He doesn't get the big strikeout totals, but he also absolutely doesn't get in his own way with the free passes and souvenirs which beset so many other younger pitchers in his age group. 

I'm not worried about what he's not as much as I'm excited about what he could be. He isn't a finished product, but even this version shows a lot of promise. This is the list of pitchers age 24 or younger who posted a season with a K-BB% of at least 20 percent (min 130 IP) in recent seasons:

• Spencer Strider - 2022
• George Kirby - 2022
• Julio Urias - 2021
• Logan Webb - 2021
• Trevor Rogers - 2021
• Shane Bieber - 2019
• Jack Flaherty - 2019
• Lucas Giolito - 2019
• Walker Buehler - 2019
• Chris Paddack - 2019

Kirby and Rogers were the only two who failed to win at least 11 games, while none of them had an ERA over 3.45 or a WHIP over 1.21. 

Texas Rangers

Nathaniel Lowe (ADP 107, Min 76, Max 128) is not a top-15 first baseman

I touched on this a bit with Lowe in a mid-September piece, but a big part of his batting average success last year was his 19 infield hits despite his below-average sprint speed:

Lowe could be a victim of the Law of Unintended Consequences as defenses are forced to take more normalized alignments and robbing Lowe from just taking things to the soft part of the infield. The expected stats from his performance last year show someone who enjoyed quite a bit of batted-ball fortune all around:

Those numbers are why you see the aggregated projections above projecting such a decline in his batting average from the .302 he hit last season. He does make solid contact, but does so around both below-average walk rates as well as below-average strikeout rates. Earlier in his career, he was too passive of a hitter, and now he has tilted toward a more aggressive approach while still having issues with velocity in the upper half of the strike zone. 

Lowe's average and homers helped carry the way last year for him since his runs and RBI were merely average. Should both his batting average and power numbers come back down, suddenly we're back to the 2021 version that nobody really liked, yet here we are paying a heavy price for his most recent production. 

Brock Burke (ADP 530, Min 393, Max 647) is a top-150 pitcher

The Reliever Incarnate (that's for you, Clay Link) had an impressive full-season debut with the Rangers with a 20 percent K-BB%, a 1.97 ERA and 1.06 WHIP, pitching well enough that the Rangers come into 2023 still trying to decide whether he belongs in their rotation or as their closer. A recent quote from their GM was rather intriguing (via The Athletic):

"Potentially," Young acknowledged. "I talked to Mike (Maddux, pitching coach) a little bit about that yesterday. It's open. As dominant as (Burke) was last year … (but) does that reduce his workload and his innings, and is that the best way to allocate the innings that he can contribute? I think Brock is very capable of 100-plus innings this year. I'm not sure he gets that in a closer's role. Or maybe it's a different type of closer's role; maybe it's not as conventional. I don't want to get too far ahead because we're not committing to that. It could be a traditional type of closer, but certainly we view Brock as a valuable member of our bullpen and he can pitch a number of different roles that could help us win games."

That kind of volume and hybrid role from someone being drafted as a middle reliever could get very interesting. Some recent results that we have seen with relievers throwing at least 80 innings include:

Look, anytime I can include the legendary Rod Beck (RIP) in a table, I have to do it. This is not to say I envision Burke as the new Hader, but I do hope he is somewhere between Broxton and Rodriguez this year while hopefully not becoming the 2019 version of Peralta. All three of Burke's primary offerings had expected batting averages below .230 and each had whiff rates above 20 percent. He also did some work on his slider as he retooled it in-season from a pitch that began the year coming in just over 84 mph to one which finished the season coming in over 89 mph, taking the pitch's whiff rate from 19 percent in April to over 30 percent in the second half of the season:

Simply put, his success last year was not a fluke, and the fact the club is considering him for such a role speaks to their beliefs in his abilities.