The season hasn’t even started, and I’m so exhausted from trying to predict what’s going to happen this year that I thought I’d change it up a little for the last week of the pre-season. This time, I’m starting with what I think won’t happen and working backwards, and ending up with things that could happen but almost certainly won’t. Or something like that. Sometimes I think with my heart instead of worrying about numbers when I’m looking at fantasy baseball, but if there’s a time in fantasy baseball to let your emotions take over, it’s probably when you’re talking about deep-league dart throws. All I know is that I’m sick of KNOWING that there will be a Tommy Pham out there every year, but not being able to figure out who the heck it is. Although, I believe I did tell you to pick up Tommy Pham in early May last year, so even you shallow-league types never know when you’ll pick up an interesting kernel of info from us deep-league freaks. Just sayin!
We’re gonna stay in the American League today, with some NL thoughts to come next week, perhaps. So here are some deep-league predictions for 2018, some much sillier than others, AL version:
Shane Greene is still the Tigers’ closer in August, and is comfortably in the Top 10 on the AL saves leader list.
Ditto Blake Treinen for your Oakland Athletics.
Matt Andriese, who didn’t crack the top 500 in NFBC ADP this year, is owned in over one-third of CBS Sports leagues by mid-June.
Ben Gamel takes longer than expected to recover from his strained oblique, but once he does, hits the ground running and gets serious All-Star game consideration.
On May 15th, Mallex Smith will be among the top 3 MLB stolen base leaders.
Even after missing time with his hand injury and serving his suspension, Yuli Gurriel manages to top his numbers from last year, hitting an even .300 on the year with 20 homers, 75 runs, and 80 RBI.
Aaron Sanchez stays blister-free all year and ends up being a 15-game winner.
James McCann outproduces five of the ten AL catchers who are ranked ahead of him in fantasy.
Instead of regressing, Yonder Alonso actually builds on his 2017 power numbers and by the All-Star Break has us all wondering why we didn’t draft him in every league.
Zack Cozart stays healthy all year and winds up as a top-5 AL-only shortstop (then gets comically overdrafted the following year, when he only qualifies at 3B).
