If you are reading this and don’t subscribe to Baseball Prospectus, you’re doing yourself a disservice.  Will Carroll, Kevin Goldstein and the rest of crew at BP are simply the best purveyors of baseball information in the industry.

That being said, today they released an updated version of their PECOTA projection report that brought with it some surprising prophecies as we try and handicap the 2010 season.

Home Runs

While it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the top 3 HR projected home run hitters in 2010 are Prince Fielder, Miguel Cabrera, and Alex Rodriguez according to PECOTA, the few who did surprise me included Rangers’ Chris Davis, projected to hit 31 HR’s in a full-time role in Arlington, Mike Napoli, slated for 28 bombs as the Angels main battery-mate in Anaheim, and JJ Hardy returning to his 2007-08 form with 25 Home runs in the chilly confines of Target Field.   Other surprising names included Matt LaPorta (24 HR), Nolan Reimold (25 HR), and David Wright returning to his former glory (26 HR) at Citifield.

Saves

Saves are one of the most overvalued categories in all of fantasy sports.  Whether you play in a Roto or PPA format, in order for relievers to have any value, they had better win or collect a ton of saves.  However, each season several “dark horses” emerge enabling the savvy Fantasy GM to pounce, rather than waste a valuable pick or worse spend valuable cash on a “lesser” closer…one who may not even have a role in June or July.   In that vein PECOTA offers some help using their algorithmic crystal ball.   The Top 3 Closers according to PECOTA in total saves are Joakim Soria (42 Saves?), Jose Valverde (39 Saves) and Bobby Jenks (37 Saves).   PECOTA also foresees Chris Perez splittings save opportunities with Kerry Wood in Cleveland, and Billy Wagner sharing duties in Atlanta with Takashi Saito (14 Saves a piece).  PECOTA also projects Jeremy Accardo as the closer in Toronto.

While PECOTA has proved to be a valuable tool in projecting the likely outcome of the upcoming season, one thing is for sure…there will definitely be many more surprises as we head towards spring training.

Top 10 Fantasy Baseball Keepers coming soon…

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