Fantasy Baseball 2017 Preview: Sleepers, Predictions and Position Rankings – Bleacher Report

Trea Turner will be worth the first-round hype.Matthew Hazlett/Getty Images

Trea Turner will be a fantasy superstar

Turner is going toward the end of the first round in a lot of leagues, and that’s a lot of faith to put in a player with 100 career games under his belt.

He’ll live up to the hype, though.

With elite speed, sneaky power and the hit tool to bat over .300, he’s the complete package at the top of the lineup, and if Bryce Harper bounces back, he should have no problem eclipsing 100 runs scored to boot.

A.J. Pollock will return to form

Pollock was the seventh-highest scoring fantasy player in 2015.

Even after playing just 12 games last season, he has an average draft position of 35.0 this year, making him the ninth outfielder off the board, so no one is sleeping on the D-Backs star.

The 29-year-old hit .315 with 20 home runs, 76 RBI, 111 runs scored and 39 stolen bases in 2015, and there’s no reason he can’t return to that level of production now that he’s back to 100 percent.

Jonathan Villar will regress but still steal a ton of base

The stolen base total might be sustainable for Villar, one of the league’s most aggressive base runners.

I’m not so sure about the rest of it.

His .285 average came with a .373 BABIP was high even for a speedster, and his 19 home runs were aided by a jump in home-run-to-fly-ball rate from 10.0 to 19.8 percent.

There’s no question he was an improved hitter, but it doesn’t seem like he has anywhere to go but down.

Jon Gray will change the thinking about Rockies pitchers

The days of flat-out avoiding Rockies pitchers (aside from that one year of Ubaldo Jimenez) might be coming to a close.

The 4.61 ERA from a year ago might not look pretty, but the peripheral numbers were great.

His 3.60 FIP is a good sign of things to come, his 1.26 WHIP was solid and he tallied 185 strikeouts in 168 innings.

That was all in his rookie season, and the 25-year-old looks like he has legitimate front-line potential.

Andrew Benintendi and Dansby Swanson won’t both win Rookie of the Year

Heading into the season, there are two clear front-runners for Rookie of the Year honors.

How often do both front-runners actually win the award, though?

How many people were predicting Michael Fulmer would take it home a year ago?

Tracking rookie call-ups on the waiver wire is as important as drafting a good team, and here’s betting that one of the two rookie favorites will cede top honors to an unexpected standout.

All stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs, unless otherwise noted.