Collette Calls: 2025 AL West Bold Predictions

The 10 players we will discuss today have an ADP of 294, with a min pick of 68 and a max pick of 745. Once again, there's something in here for everyone, but admittedly just two players for you who play in the deeper league formats. Now that we have multiple projections out there (Steamer, OOPSY) as well as ours, you will now see some more projection references.

All ADP references are from the 85 Draft Championship drafts since December 15th. 

Los Angeles Angels

Jorge Soler is a top-150 player (ADP 222)

Soler is the 51st outfielder in the recent ADP rankings, going just behind Victor Robles and Alec Burleson and just in front of Cedric Mullins and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. I personally love Soler landing in Anaheim, because it will give him the chance to just grab the bat four to five times a game and do his thing. It's my hope the Angels don't allow Soler to play any more outfield as he is terrible out there, and I would prefer to see the Angels let Soler do what Marcell Ozuna has been allowed to do in Atlanta. 

Soler's 48-homer season in the juicy ball era of 2019 isn't going to repeat itself, but anyone who can hit 36 homers in a full season in Miami needs more attention. Soler still has elite bat speed, is very willing to accept walks, and barrels the ball up well when he puts it in play. He should now be hitting cleanup behind Taylor Ward, Luis Rengifo and Mike Trout, but Nolan Schanuel's on-base skills could also crack their way into the top three spots of that lineup. Either way, Soler should not have an issue exceeding his RBI projections:

• Ours: 63
• Steamer: 79
• OOPSY: 86

A full season of Soler hitting cleanup should challenge 100 RBIs since RBI is very much a skill of opportunity. Soler hit all over the lineup last season, with more plate appearances as a leadoff man than anywhere else, which held down his RBI totals. His 48 homers in 2019 certainly helped him drive in 117 runs, but he also hit fourth or fifth in most of his plate appearances that year and drove in 73 of his runs from those spots. 

Soler has hit at least league average for batting average each of the past two seasons and is going to provide value across four categories. Give Soler 650 plate appearances as a full-time DH and this could be a fun season for him.

Yusei Kikuchi is a top-40 pitcher (ADP 141)

Kikuchi is the 58th pitcher in the current rankings, about 50 picks behind 40th-ranked pitcher Logan Webb. Kikuchi is coming off a tale of two seasons, as he pitched to a 4-9 record with a 4.75 ERA and 1.34 WHIP for Toronto but then went 5-1 with a 2.70 ERA and a 0.93 WHIP for Houston over 10 starts. Kikuchi never lost the ability to strike guys out, as he struck out 26.2 percent of opposing batters with Toronto but then ramped things up to a 31.8 percent strikeout rate with Houston after making some changes to his approach to pitching:

Houston encouraged Kikuchi to really leverage his slider and it was a huge part of the turnaround after the trade:

The slider was rather hittable early, as the league hit .283 off the pitch through May, but the league hit .197 the rest of the season off that same slider as the Astros told him to dump the curveball and eat with that slider. Kikuchi threw more sliders in August (67) to lefties than he did over any two-month span with Houston. 

I went into Stathead and asked it to find me all starters (min 120 IP) who matched what Kikuchi did last season: at least a 22.0 percent K-BB% and a WHIP of 1.20 or higher. I did the higher flag for a reason; look what shows up:

• Dylan Cease (2021)
• Blake Snell (2022)
• Kevin Gausman (2022)

Cease went on to have a breakout season in 2022, Snell won a Cy Young in 2023 while Gausman finished third in Cy Young voting that same year. If you lower that WHIP filter, Kikuchi would be just the fifth pitcher to put up an ERA of at least 4.00 with such a solid K-BB% rate joining Aaron Nola (2021), Joe Ryan (2023), Yu Darvish (2021) and Nick Pivetta, who has found a way to do this each of the past two seasons.

Simply put, I wish Kikuchi would have joined a better club so I felt better about his ability to earn wins, but Houston made a necessary adjustment to Kikuchi that should help him limit the homers which have always plagued him. 

Houston Astros

Pedro Leon is a top-100 outfielder (ADP 745)

Leon is 202nd on the outfield ADP chart behind Jakob Marsee and the retired Charlie Blackmon. Needless to say, Leon is free for the taking in just about every league format and depth. He's been selected in five of the 85 drafts over the past month. Before you get dismissive of this and request I attend some type of therapy, consider that Lawrence Butler was taken in just 11 percent of Draft Champions drafts last winter and had an ADP of 702. 

This, for me, is all about the opportunity. Yordan Alvarez is likely going to spend less time in the outfield, with a majority of the playing time going to Mauricio Dubon, Chas McCormick, Jake Meyers and Taylor Trammell. Are you as unimpressed as me? Consider the body of work in Triple-A for Butler and Leon before they made the majors:

Leon has spent so much time in Sugar Land he could like run for mayor and win it, but the good news is he has gotten progressively better each season, raising his batting average from .228 to .244 to .299, albeit with a fair amount of strikeouts. This was on full display in his brief time in the majors last season, where he struck out 10 times in 21 plate appearances. This is one of those high-risk, high-reward situations, because the raw tools are there.

Leon only had four measured swings in 2024 at the big-league level, but his average bat speed in those swing was fifth-best in the league. He has a pull-heavy approach at the plate, which would fit perfectly in Houston if he makes enough contact to take advantage of the dimensions. He also has the athleticism to steal the bases he does. Houston fans and older prospect hounds could see this as another Reggie Abercrombie situation where the terrible contact beat out the athleticism, but I see Leon as the most talented outfielder of the aforementioned names. Butler taught us a lesson last year to look for value everywhere, especially when opportunity presents itself. Houston's cheapness (to date) in addressing their outfield situation this winter gives us one such opportunity. 

Spencer Arrighetti is the best Spencer pitcher in baseball in 2025 (ADP 218)

Arrighetti is 89th in the pitcher rankings, just behind Clarke Schmidt and Tanner Houck and just in front of Justin Martinez, Yu Darvish and Jeffrey Springs. I'm fascinated by him because his rookie season was all over the place. He won just 7 of his 28 starts for a team which won 88 games on the season. He also had four different contests in which he struck out at least 10 batters. He also twice allowed three homers in a game yet struck out 27.1 percent of the batters he faced last season.

Over the last 25 years, Arrighetti's 27.1 percent strikeout rate ranks 14th amongst all rookie hurlers  (min. 120 IP). His rate bests what we saw from fellow 2024 hotshot Spencer Schwellenbach and matches what Darvish did in his rookie season. His 171 strikeouts as a rookie was tied with Luis Gil, who won the AL Rookie of the Year award, and was one more strikeout than what Paul Skenes managed (in 12 fewer innings of work). 

You'll recall from earlier in this series my concerns about Schwellenbach and his increased workload, but those are not present for Arrighetti. He worked 106.2 innings in 2022, 124.2 in 2023, and 153.1 last season between Triple-A and the majors. Schwellenbach's current ADP is 94, well ahead of where Arrighetti is going. While Schwellenbach and Strider are under one roof (see what I did there?), Arrighetti has the potential to provide equal production if not at a higher volume than either Atlanta hurler. Houston's offense has to make up for the losses of Kyle Tucker and Alex Bregman, but the new softball look and feel of the lineup is capable of providing run production to turn more of Arrighetti's starts into wins. 

He throws five different pitch types to righties and lefties, and each of his pitch classifications has a whiff rate of at least 20 percent. I love this archetype of pitcher, especially at his current market price. 

(Sacramento) Athletics

Shea Langeliers is a top-three catcher (ADP 129) 

I am reasonably excited to see what we can get from Shea Bangeliers out of Oakland Coliseum. He has already given us two consecutive seasons of 20-plus homers from the catching position, with a level of production nestled somewhere between vintage Mike Zunino and Cal Raleigh. The issues have been exacerbated at home, as Langeliers has hit .195 at his home park over the past two seasons while striking out 29.8 percent of the time, with just 19 of his 51 homers happening in front of the hometown crowd. Meanwhile, he's hit .234 on the road with 32 homers and a 26.5 percent strikeout rate.

Sutter Field should help Langeliers out with his home numbers, and he's currently projected to hit cleanup which should also help him attempt to best his career high of 80 RBI set last season. If you want to lean into the expected stats, the 40-plus point difference in his batting average off fastballs and changeups is encouraging as well. Remember that one season where Zunino surprised us all and hit .251, or the time he hit 33 homers? What if you were to put those two numbers into the same season and get them out of Langeliers? That is how he can become a top-three catcher this season. That .241/.321/.472 second half with 12 homers in 54 games has me more excited about a catcher than I typically am.

Our projections have Langeliers with the second most homers, trailing only Raleigh, while ours, Steamer and OOPSY each project 26 homers for Langeliers. He's currently going as a high Tier 2 catcher, but I firmly believe there's Tier 1 upside in his final numbers with the change in home venue as well as the trend of growth in a player's third full season in the majors. 

Osvaldo Bido is the top dollar-earner on the Athletics staff (ADP 460)

It says something when every starting pitcher in this projected rotation has an ADP of 232 or lower in the rankings. As it stands, Bido is third by ADP on the team rankings but well behind Jeffrey Springs (232) and Luis Severino (288). However, the boldness also lies in the fact that this is a pitcher who was non-tendered by Pittsburgh in 2023 and the A's just grabbed him on the cheap. Bido pitched to a 4.50 ERA in the PCL over 48 innings and did so with a 19.1 percent K-BB%. The 10 homers in the PCL in those 48 innings drove up that ERA around his 55 strikeouts and 16 walks.

Bido then pitched in a swingman role for the big-league club, winning five of his nine starts, including four quality starts. He struck out 63 in 63.1 innings and drastically reduced his home run rate, as he allowed just three homers at the big-league level. His slider is his best pitch by stuff metrics, but he throws five different pitches to both righties and lefties while preferring changeups to lefties and sinkers to righties. Bido's four-seamer performed particularly well last season, with a .203 average (.172 xBA) and a 28.7 percent whiff rate, compared to 2023 when that same pitch had a .358 average (.278 xBA) with a 27.0 percent whiff rate. The Athletics had Bido dial back his slider usage and encouraged him to throw more four-seamers, and with that whiff rate, it's easy to see why. 

What really jumps off the page for Bido is that four of his five pitches had batting averages against of .203 or lower, with only his sinker suffering damage. Sinkers are designed to be put into play, but the 103-point difference between his opponents' batting average off the sinker (.304) and their expected batting average (.201) is crazy. The move to the rotation is something Bido is ready for workload-wise, as he worked between 101 and 111 innings in each of the past three seasons. The current asking price for Bido begs for speculation, especially if you believe the Athletics are on the upward track this season with the new home park and continuous talent build. 

Seattle Mariners

Dylan Moore is a top-30 middle infielder (ADP 384)

Did you really think we were going to get through this entire series without me tying UCF into things? Moore is the only non-pitching UCF alumnus in the majors as he continues to serve as the super utility player for the Mariners. Moore has hit double-digit homers twice in the past four seasons and has swiped 20 or more bases in three of the last four years. However, a full-time role has evaded him because of his struggles making contact. Moore has a career .206 batting average in just under 1,700 major-league plate appearances thanks to a 29.8 percent career strikeout rate. 

Moore is not a free-swinger, as he has one of the lowest chase rates in the big leagues in recent seasons. His in-zone contact rate since 2021 is 82.6 percent, which puts him alongside the likes of Willson Contreras, Willy Adames, Ian Happ and Eugenio Suarez, to name a few. His strikeout rates have lived in the bottom 25th percentile, yet his whiff rates are closer to the middle of the pack and he doesn't expand his zone. He simply works himself into deep counts with one of the lower overall swing rates in the league, so his strikeouts tend to have more to do with two-strike challenges than an overall poor approach at the plate. Still, only Christopher Morel had a lower batting average for all batters with similar strikeout rates, and Moore's issues have been exacerbated when he's facing righties.

Moore has hit .184 with a 30.8 percent strikeout rate against righties over the past two seasons, but the 12 percent walk rate allowed him to reach base enough to swipe 32 bases in 38 attempts. Moore qualifies at four positions (2B/3B/SS/OF) in most leagues and five (1B/2B/3B/SS/OF) in others. Did you know that he was one of just seven middle infielders with at least 10 homers and 30 steals in 2024 and one of just 15 middle infielders to pull off those totals in any of the last four seasons? Moore is projected to hit at the bottom of the Seattle lineup without any imminent threat to his playing time at the minor-league level. Their highest ranked second baseman on the organizational depth chart, Samad Taylor, was recently DFA'd, while Ben Williamson at shortstop has not seen a single at-bat in Triple-A. 

Simply put, Moore is in the final year of the three-year extension he signed in 2023 and should be able to produce in the counting categories, but his perpetual struggles with breaking balls put a lot on the luck dragons helping his batted-ball fortunes. This prediction is truly based on him maxing out his counting categories and him attempting to get his batting average back over .220.

Andres Munoz is a top-three closer this season (ADP 68)

Munoz is currently eighth by ADP at the closer role:

• Emmanuel Clase: 35
• Josh Hader: 44
• Edwin Diaz: 45
• Devin Williams: 46
• Mason Miller: 48
• Ryan Helsley: 53
• Raisel Iglesias: 55
• Andres Munoz: 68

Why draft in the third or fourth round what you can get in the 6th round? I've already stated my concerns with Clase this season, but closer volatility happens to everyone and we could easily make a case for any of the top guys to fall off. When someone falls, someone else climbs up the rankings. 

This time last season, Munoz had traffic around him on the depth chart, with Matt Brash and Gregory Santos potentially lining up for saves, but both of them suffered major injury setbacks and now Munoz stands alone (as long as his back doesn't flare up again). Munoz has twice pitched to ERAs below 2.50 and WHIPs below 1.00 over the past three seasons. The combination of a strong pitching rotation and a struggling offense will put Seattle in many late and close situations and in that likely sweet spot of 75-85 wins, enough to create plenty of save opportunities. 

Munoz has 40 career saves but could challenge doubling that number this season, especially if he can avoid the back flare-up. He was dealing with a back strain since the first week of the season, an issue that wasn't helped by a collision at home plate while covering a play in June. He had a cortisone injection but an MRI did not reveal any damage and he persisted. However, the noticeable dip in his strikeout rate in that time was a problem he eventually recovered from:

In short, I will gladly take Munoz as my primary closer this season in any league format and would love a roster build that can land me this upside in the fifth or sixth round. 

Texas Rangers

Evan Carter is a top-50 outfielder (ADP 288)

Speaking of back problems. Carter is 70th on the ADP rankings for outfielders, just behind Jo Adell and Wilyer Abreu and just in front of Roman Anthony and Jordan Walker. Carter's current ADP is 70 spots behind Alec Burleson, who is currently the 50th-ranked outfielder by ADP. Carter's 2024 season was a wash, as he eventually succumbed to a stress reaction in his back that put him on the injured list on May 28th, where he stayed for the rest of the season. 

A hitter is nothing without their core, and Carter's disappointing numbers last year can certainly be written off due to his back problems. However, his .223/.316/.447 line in 237 major-league career plate appearances does not exactly instill confidence for those quickly scanning numbers. We should also remember just how young Carter is, as well as what he has accomplished as a minor-league hitter. Carter turned 22 near the end of the 2024 season and already had those plate appearances under his belt while most of his age peers were still bussing it between minor-league stadiums.

Carter hit .285/.410/.459 in 1,134 minor-league plate appearances, often as one of the youngest players in the league. Carter is just a year removed from 13 homers, 26 steals and a .288/.413/.450 line across three levels of the Texas farm system. He's a disciplined hitter with good control of the strike zone as he has accepted his walks wherever he has been allowing him to get on base and use his speed. The tools are all here for him to succeed, just as they were last season when Carter was going 116th in the Main Event drafts. He was cleared to resume swinging a bat in November and is expected to be 100 percent without restriction once camp breaks in a few weeks. It's only going to take a decent spring for Carter's ADP ranking to jump back up, whereas his current price makes him a tremendous target in the late teen rounds of drafts.

Kumar Rocker is a top-75 pitcher (ADP 289)

Rocker is 116th by ADP just behind the Slim Reaper (David Festa) and Griffin Jax. Everyone loves a good comeback story, and Rocker's 2024 was one to enjoy. Rocker's medicals scared away the Mets after they drafted him in 2021, which sent Rocker to the Frontier League to pitch in advance of the 2022 draft. The Rangers took him with the third-overall selection, and he began the 2023 season with the Hickory Crawdads before requiring Tommy John surgery on May 16th of that season. Rocker made his way back to the mound in 2024, pitching 36.2 innings at three different stops in the Texas farm system and striking out 39.6 percent of the batters he faced while walking just 3.6 percent of them. 

Command is the last thing which returns for pitchers coming off major surgery, so Rocker's impressive walk rate got my attention, along with a very strong groundball rate of 52.6 percent. Rocker did finally make it to the majors late last season, pitching in three games while striking out 14 hitters in 11.2 innings. 

Rocker has pitched a total of 347 innings since leaving high school over the past six seasons. He hasn't even pitched as many 50 innings in a season as a professional, so the risks are rather obvious here since we have no idea how he'll hold up to the stresses of pitching a full season of baseball. He is not even projected to make the Opening Day rotation, but a rotation filled with the likes of Nathan Eovaldi, Jon Gray, Jacob deGrom and Tyler Mahle is bound to have an IL stint or 10 over the course of a season. 

This is a risk/reward pick worth making in the 18th round, as long as the rest of your staff isn't already full of similar situations. After watching through this video, I'm thinking back to Chris Archer and thinking a 2013 Archer-like season could be in the works for Rocker in 2025: