Collette Calls: 2026 AL West Bold Predictions

This one is a challenge for me, because while I did so well on the Shea Langeliers and Andres Munoz calls last season, this was otherwise an all-or-nothing division, as the two five-star reviews were drowned out by eight one-star reviews. I don't expect to hit them all, but I also need to do better than that in 2026. I hope you enjoy my efforts to do so below. 

Athletics

Last Year: Shea Langeliers is a top-3 catcher (5 stars)

This Year: Jeff McNeil sets a new career high in home runs 

McNeil joined the Athletics in late December when the Mets sent him and some cash out west for Yordan Rodriguez. McNeil's time in New York had run its course, highlighted by a 2019 season which saw him hit a career-best 23 home runs while taking advantage of the baseball that season more than anything else. Now, he takes his abilities to the best home situation in the league for him as well as one which should leave him in the lineup on an everyday basis at second, rather than the nomadic role the Mets used him in last year which saw him play five different positions. McNeil is also in a contract year as he attempts to either convince the Athletics to exercise the $17.75 million club option they have on him for 2027 or improve his resume for other suitors in what is almost guaranteed to be his last multi-year contract given his age. It is for those reasons that I believe McNeil has a chance to set a new career high in home runs in 2026.

It is easy to see a hitter changing their approach with those factors and motivators in play, and McNeil has already added more loft to his batted balls in recent seasons. He's coming off his lowest GB/FB rate this past season along with a career-high pull rate.  The move from Citi Field to Sutter Health Park takes McNeil from a park that was six percent better than league average for lefty homers last season to one that was 17 percent above league average last season. It is no surprise that Sutter Health and Steinbrenner Field would have been the two best environments for McNeil last year, as both would have added four homers to his total had he played all his games there. Now, he at least gets half his games in such a situation with his first real chance at 600-plus plate appearances since 2023. 

Simply put, this is a play on volume, as I believe the conditions are there for McNeil to increase his playing time by 25 percent from last season and take full advantage of it to establish his short-term financial future. He is currently 29th at the second base spot by ADP going at pick 352, which is a price we should all be comfortable jumping in on to see how this plays out in 2026. 

Last Year: Osvaldo Bido is the top dollar earner on the Athletics staff (1 star)

This Year: Justin Sterner leads the Athletics with 20-plus saves

I mentioned this particular situation back in early December, and nothing the Athletics have done has changed my mind here. Sterner still has the best stuff in what is an unsettled Athletics bullpen: 

Sterner operates with a four-seamer, cutter and sweeper, and each of them generated whiff rates of 25 percent or greater. Just look at what he did to both Luis Arraez and Xander Bogaerts in this highlight video (jump to the 1:00 mark):

Sure, his fastball comes in 10 miles per hour slower than what Mason Miller was firing for the club before he was sent down the coast, but Sterner closed the season on an impressive run with a 24.6 percent K-BB% while holding opposing hitters to a .185 batting average, striking out 35 batters, walking six and allowing four homers to 118 second half batters faced.  

ADP already has Sterner as the highest drafted reliever on the Athletics, but his ADP of 475 means he is not even being drafted in the active phase of a standard 12-team league. If you are looking for your third closer or speculating on a closer with one of your bench picks, make it Sterner. I took him in the 42nd round of my latest draft. 

Houston

Last Year: Pedro Leon is a top-100 outfielder (1 star)

This Year: Cam Smith is a top-60 outfielder

Smith is 79th on the outfield ADP rankings at 336, 86 spots behind Adolis Garcia, who sits 60th at the position. Smith, to put it kindly, was given a baptism by fire last season, as he has yet to take even a single swing in a Houston minor-league affiliate after the club saw enough while scouting him and in spring training to add him, and keep him, on the major-league roster all season. It could also be argued that the club did not exactly have options on the 40-man roster to make the needed switch, so they left the 22-year-old rookie up on the major-league roster all season and used him on a regular basis.

The results were not good outside of his obvious bat speed, which allowed him to hit .255 against fastballs but .210 against all other pitch types while swinging and missing over 35 percent of the time. This prediction is a bet on the talent, because heading into the season, Smith was the top prospect in the Houston organization, and the last four of James Anderson's prospect rankings for Smith before his promotion each had Smith inside the top 40 overall and as high as fifth last spring. The FanGraphs prospect team slapped a future 50 label on him. His amazing 2024 season which began with him hitting .387/.488/.654 at Florida State and then saw him rapidly ascend through three levels of the Chicago organizaqtion while hitting .313/.396/.609 justified those rankings.

I brought this similar path up with Jac Caglianone in the AL Central installment of this series, but both he and Smith really saw their first taste of struggles last year. The Royals were at least kind enough to allow Caglianone to go back to Triple-A, but Smith was left up all season to sink or swim, and it mostly got worse as the season went on, as the club left him out there to hit .154/.247/.242 in the second half of the season.

Again, this is a bet on the talent and the opportunity, because the same factors which were present for Smith to remain on the major-league roster persist in Houston. Their projected outfield contains the likes of Jesus Sanchez, Zach Cole, Jake Meyers and Zach Dezenzo. They already dealt away the biggest threat to Smith's playing time in Jacob Melton, and Meyers is the only one of that bunch locked into a job because he is the only one who has demonstrated the ability to handle center field defensively. Houston could surprise us all and make a much-needed acquisition to address this situation, but for now, I am very willing to buy the dip on the talented Smith and see how this situation plays out while believing in his true talent levels. 

Last Year: Spencer Arrighetti is the best Spencer pitcher in 2025 (1 star)

This Year: Steven Okert is a top-500 player

Okert is currently going 750 by ADP over the last month, yet when I hid his name and put his anonymous stats up against Bryan Abreu's in the great Joe Sheehan Slack channel a few days ago, all but one voter chose Okert (1) based on these numbers, yet Abreu (2) is going 500 picks earlier:

This is one of those predictions where I'm not saying the Astros are going to push Okert up and over someone who was a very successful setup man for them last season, but more a heads up to the AL-only and draft-and-hold folks that the market is sleeping on Okert. I firmly believe he is worth a final reserve-round pick or a selection in the final few rounds of draft-and-hold formats. 

Watch this highlight video from last season and see what he brings to the mound with his simplified repertoire, using only a four-seamer and a slider while scrapping the other secondaries he has toyed with over the years:

He found something last season and recovered the strikeout rate he had lost the previous season with Minnesota and ended up with the sixth-best K-BB% of all relievers who threw at least 70 innings last season while holding hitters to a lower batting average and walking fewer hitters than the aforementioned Abreu.

Finally, I found this long-form video of Okert working at Tread Athletics here in Charlotte quite fascinating, and I encourage you to watch it:

There is already some market worry about Hader and whether he is fully recovered from what ailed him toward the end of last season. If there is truly something wrong with Hader and Abreu is asked to take the step forward, someone needs to fill his valuable role as the bridge to the ninth inning. Okert is one of two other lefties in the pen, so he isn't trapped by his handedness and has the recent success to show he is ready to step up into a bigger role if needed. His slider has been a fantastic pitch for him each of the past two seasons, and his mechanical improvements help turn around his fastball from a hot mess in 2024 to a better-than-average one in 2025 despite it only being in the low 90s.

Los Angeles

Last Year: Jorge Soler is a top-150 player (1 star)

This Year: Nolan Schanuel is a top-20 first baseman

Schanuel is currently 29th on the ADP charts at 306, while Sal Stewart is well ahead of him at 219. This is the kind of leap forward Schanuel must make to crack the top 20 of what is a comfortably deep position this season, as the cliff on the Marianna Trench at this position happens once you go from the 23rd-ranked first baseman, Spencer Steer at 244, to the 24th, Lenyn Sosa, at 282. 

Schanuel is down there for a reason, because he is an atypical first baseman. Defensive metrics aren't kind to him (or most of this roster), but Schanuel remains a viable asset because he trades hard contact for high-level plate awareness. Those skills allow him to be utilized high in this softball-like lineup, and he is currently projected to hit second in between the two best talents on the roster in Zach Neto and Mike Trout. This combination of skills and circumstance is what has allowed him to amass the sixth-most plate appearances at first base over the past two seasons, despite him never playing 150 games in a single season. 

This season, there is zero threat to his playing time despite his defensive liabilities, because the Angels roster is constructed like a terrible softball team that is mostly out there for the post-game. To show you how locked in Schanuel is to playing first base on a daily basis, the only other options on the roster include Oswald Peraza, mostly because he is out of options, and recent NRI-signee Trey Mancini, who's making another attempt to repeat his comeback story from his health care a few years ago. 

Perhaps it is my memory bank thinking back to the late-round value James Loney brought to the plate with a very similar skillset back in 2013, when he hit .299 over 598 plate appearances for Tampa Bay. He never did tap into power, but 75-plus RBIs hitting behind Neto and a high average from first base over 600 plate appearances can help propel Schanuel higher in the final rankings. Truth be told, Schanuel's plate appearance ceiling this season could even push 650, since he reached 564 last season in just 132 games played. 

Last Year: Yusei Kikuchi is a top-40 pitcher (1 star)

This Year: Reid Detmers is not a top-400 player

I hate doing this, because I loved watching Detmers from a distance last season and what he was able to do out of the Angel bullpen, but I believe adding him to the rotation is a recipe for disaster for the lefty in 2026 for a couple of reasons.

My biggest concern for Detmers is that the Angels are a horrendous defensive team, one that was dead last in baseball in 2025 for fielding run value at -54. There is not even an average defender among their regulars in their infield, and their projected defensive alignment has brought back the corpse of Yoan Moncada at the hot corner and a below-average utility fielder and potential starter in Vaughn Grissom. The outfield is not much better, with Jorge Soler, Jo Adell and Josh Lowe chasing things down, so I am very concerned with the lack of defensive support Detmers will receive as a starter.

The move to the rotation will also come with a decline in his fastball velocity. Detmers added two miles an hour to his fastball last season out of the pen, and it led to a near 40-point reduction in his batting average against on the pitch from 2024 and an almost 60-point improvement from the 2023 season as a starter. This all comes in the face of Detmers improving his strikeout rate each of the past five seasons, taking it from a below-average 18.8 percent to a stellar 30.1 percent last season out of the pen. 

The projection systems all have him doing something similar to 2023 but with more wins, as he was very unlucky that season in that department, but he was also mostly unrosterable in mixed leagues due to his high ratios. He is currently 137th on the pitching ADP chart, so he's making his way onto a handful of 15-teams in the active phase of the draft but also going as a high reserve pick in most draft and holds. I myself took him in the 29th round of a draft and hold as my ninth starting pitcher, but did so purely as a streaming option. I would not take him in a 30-round FAAB draft, as I believe there is more floor than ceiling for this lefty as long as he remains with the Angels. 

Seattle

Last Year: Dylan Moore is a top-30 middle infielder (1 star)

This Year: Dominic Canzone is a top-60 outfielder

I wrote this one down in September after watching him play a few times and being impressed with what I saw from him at the plate. Canzone is currently the 80th oufielder on the ADP charts at 338, so he has some climbing to do to make this prediction come to fruition. He must also show he can hit lefties to avoid a platoon situation with Rob Refsnyder, but that may be inescapable given how prolific the latter has been against lefties in recent seasons.

Canzone did not have enough plate appearancesto qualify for the rankings at BaseballSavant, but there is a lot of faded red in all the right areas if you are one to bet on upside. The Stat Review section of his player page here at RotoWire is green in many appealing areas as well:

Canzone is likely locked in at DH, because two thirds of the outfield is covered with Randy Arozarena and Julio Rodriguez. Right field, where his arm is his best asset, is an option for Canzone, but the club appears to be willing to give Victor Robles another chance to show that 2024 was real while every other season since 2020 for him was not. 

Canzone has never had more than 270 plate appearances at the big-league level, and last season was his first true taste of success, but I believe it was a harbinger of what is to come rather than an outlier for him. The opportunity wide open for Canzone, especially if he can show he can at least hold serve against lefties. By Steamer600 projections, Canzone is tied for third with Josh Naylor on the club at 24 home runs along with 68 runs and 77 RBI. 

Last Year: Andres Munoz is a top-three closer (5 stars)

This Year: Jose Ferrer is a top-15 closer

I adjusted this prediction after the Nationals went out and ruined it for me by trading Ferrer to Seattle, where he's set to set up one of my best predictions from just last year in Munoz. My fantasy portfolio had multiple shares of Munoz as he enjoyed a breakout season with 38 saves and a 1.73 ERA, but I also find myself very curious as to why the Mariners went out and acquired Ferrer when they already had someone with Matt Brash's upside as an inurance policy, and I wonder if this chart generated a sense of urgency for Seattle to strengthen their late-inning options:

Munoz has periodically dealt with upper body tighness related to his back, but the velocity drop is at least slightly concerning. It did not particularly show up in his outcomes, as Munoz possessed a 33 percent K-BB% in the second half with a .191 batting average against while slighly increasing his strikeout rate from the first half, but he was at least slightly more hittable after the break (.191) compared to before it (.148) and struggled with more walks, as his walk rate jumped three full percentage points.

Getting back to Ferrer, I started digging into him back in late September as I was prepping for the XFL draft in early November while out in Arizona and came across an interesting comp for the lefty:

On the left, we have Ferrer from last season showing an elite groundball rate and being incredibly stingy with walks while possessing a hard sinking fastball. On the right, we have a similar profile from 2024 of a lefty who saved 13 games for the Phillies: Jose Alvarado. The risk with Alvarado was he rarely knew where his sinker was going as it had so much movement, but Ferrer knows where his stuff is going and will work hitters up and down in the zone as he does throughout most of this highlight film with his two fastballs, changeup and slider:

The current situation has Ferrer with an ADP of 462, so you can just sit back and wait for him in the 30th round of a standard 15-team league, especially if you have a tinge of concern after rostering Munoz earlier in the draft. You can also stash him away in a draft-and-hold because Ferrer will be getting work throughout the season. The skills are there, but the opportunity to continue to flex them has temporarily been taken from him, yet the volatility of closing situations on an annual basis implores us to take the chance here in the later rounds.

Texas

Last Year: Evan Carter is a top-50 outfielder (1 star)

This Year: Jake Burger is a top-200 player

Burger is sitting at 277 on the recent ADP reports as the 24th first baseman off the board. The projections above are mixed on him, with OOPSY being the most optimistic since its model likes players with good bat speed, which Burger has not lost despite a three-year decline in his home run production while playing in three different home parks:

Burger hit the injured list three different times in 2025 with an oblique strain, a quad injury and a wrist injury which required offseason surgery to repair. The injury history for Burger is longer than a CVS receipt, but it's his ability to make hard contact which continues to suck us back in. 

Burger is slated to hit in the middle of the Texas linueup on a regular basis and should play as often as his body allows. He nearly hit 30 homers in 2024 while playing in Miami, so we cannot rule out 30-plus in Texas. Steamer600 projections put him as a top 25 home run hitter in the league, projecting him for the same 29 homers OOPSY has him for in its aggressive 588 plate appearance projection. The power potential and the injury potential are equally real here, but the market price is not so punitive that you should be running away from this potential bargain.

There are a few homers in this highlight, some of which are absolute tanks:

Last Year: Kumar Rocker is a top-75 pitcher (1 star)

This Year: Jack Leiter is a top-75 pitcher

Leiter is 93rd by ADP at 241, while Tanner Bibee is 75th at 172, showing the kind of jump I believe Leiter has the potential to make this season. Leiter's second exposure to the big leagues went better than his initial exposure in 2024, as he improved his strikeout rate by five full percentage points while holding oppositing hitters to a .221 average. Leiter was particularly effective in the second half of the season, pitching to a 3.28 ERA and a 1.19 WHIP with a 16.7 percent K-BB%, all noticeable improvements from his first-half numbers. 

Leiter made some in-season adjustments, going to his changeup more frequently over the summer and turning his sinker from his tertiary pitch to his least-used offering by season's end:

Leiter had four pitches with at least a 20 percent whiff rate over the course of the season, and each of them had an expected batting average below .225 on the season. I watch this highlight video and see someone who should be going higher than the 93rd overall pitcher: 

Yes, the budget-minded team still has a suspect bullpen, which may cost Leiter a win here or there, but I believe there is 15-win upside in Leiter if he's able to continue his second-half progress and get some more help from the bullpen once he hands the ball over to them.