Jon Anderson's 2022 Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide

Baseball is happening in 2022, and it is happening in full force. With the excellent news of the lockout ending, we are ready to dive full steam ahead into the fantasy baseball draft season!

I have had my head deep in baseball data since before Christmas, so I wanted to come out with a miniature version of my own draft guide. In this short-ish post, you will many of the most interesting things I found in my 2022 research, and my strategy and targets for every position.

Let's have at it!

General Findings / Tips

#1 - Get Steals Early

Looking at current NFBC ADP and ATC hitter projections, I made the plot below. It shows you how many projected steals are in each round of the draft, assuming a 12-team league (so picks 1-12 is round 1, 13-24 is round 2, etc.). Here's what it looks like:

The three tallest bars are the first three rounds of the draft, and the first round stands well above the rest. That is crazy to see. In fact, 29% of all of the projected steals come from players being drafted inside those top 36 picks. If you come out of the first three rounds without steals, you may be in trouble.

You could try to make up for it with a later round Adalberto Mondesi or Myles Straw pick, but you are in punt-territory in other categories with those names, and they aren't even sure to steals that many bases since their playing time is far from solidified. It's very important to me to steals right away in my draft, in fact, I'm looking to draft two steal sources in my first three picks.

#2 Take Advantage of SP Tiers 3-5

There are certainly some names that stand above the rest at the SP position (Gerrit Cole, Corbin Burnes, Max Scherzer), but things flatten out awful quickly after the top tier or two of pitchers.

The SP's in the top 30 picks make up what you could consider tiers one and two. Those names are Cole, Burnes, Walker Buehler, Max Scherzer, Brandon Woodruff, Jacob deGrom, and Zack Wheeler. Those names all have Cy Young-worthy stuff, with differing measures of reliability given their health situations.

After those names, the next 24 pitchers are all pretty close in terms of expectation. For example, you are on averaging spending pick #38 on Julio Urias, and then on average, you are paying pick #94 for Frankie Montas. These projections are pretty similar:

This is not meant to be a knock on Urias or an endorsement of Montas (although in fairness, it could be taken as such and I wouldn't fight you about it), but just a look into how large you could make the tier three pitchers.

From Urias at pick 38 the whole way down to Shane McClanahan at pick 111, there are 23 starting pitchers that really don't look much different by the projections and floor/ceiling calculations. Of course, you need 7-10 starters on your fantasy team, so this isn't to say wait until pick 80 and then select a couple of these guys. The advice is this: you can afford to go hitter heavy for 3-4 picks and then load up on SP between picks 40 and 110.

I would be thrilled with a team that started with two steals sources and a big power bat with its first three picks, and then went on to take three SP's in the next four picks or so. We'll talk more about specific names later, but in general, this seems like a very profitable way to attack the draft this season.

#3 Catch Up in Power Late

Once again this year, we find plenty of options later on in the draft in terms of finding home runs and RBI. The catch is that you won't be getting batting average or steals from these names. The way to counter-act this is to really lean heavily into steals and batting average early on. This is a good idea regardless because those categories become quite parse after you get past pick 50 or so.

It is okay to be behind in homers and RBI as you enter the later rounds. If you had to pick somewhere to be behind, that is what I'd pick. You can make up ground quickly with some of the names in this scatter plot. Here I display every hitter that is projected for 30 or more homers and plot them with their ADP. Check it out.

I've highlighted my favorites, but you can hover over to see who each dot represents. Most of these guys have high strikeout rates, that is just the trade-off you have to make to get these guys at these prices – so again, it's really important to have a good batting average foundation if you're diving in here. My absolute favorite names here are Schwarber, Soler, and Renfroe just because of the strikeout rate improvements they each made last season – I really think they have it in them to not really hurt your team's batting average while belting 35+ homers.

You will notice that the majority of those names are outfielders, which makes it not so bad of an idea to save an outfield spot or two early on in the draft to fill with some of these names.

#4 Leave an SP Spot Open

This mostly applies to leagues that have some kind of maximum starting pitchers rostered, which is a bit rare, but even so.

What seems to happen every single year is that a handful of starting pitchers that don't get drafted look really, really good early in the season. They are somewhat easy to identify, and they can really make a fantasy team. Think Trevor Rogers, Kevin Gausman, Robbie Ray, and Freddy Peralta last year. They each made a step forward over the offseason and were dominant pretty much all season long (save the missed time due to injury for Rogers). The sharp owners were picking them up in April, and benefited massively.

This is very likely to happen again in 2022, and you can really bolster your rotation by identifying and picking up these names quickly. How to identify them? Simple! After two or three turns through each team's rotation, look for pitchers that meet the following criteria.

1. A strikeout rate (K%) above 27%
2. A walk rate (BB%) below 7%
3. (Optional) A ground-ball rate (GB%) above 45%

If you look at all the names of pitchers coming up in that search, you will see a list of established aces, and probably a few surprising names as well. Pick them up immediately.

You cannot easily do this if you load up on a bunch of later-round boring pitchers in the draft that you might be hesitant to drop because they're not bad pitchers. My recommendation is to get five or six pitchers and then stop and be ready to pounce on these free agents – you will very likely find a gem or two.

Tips & Picks by Position

Catcher
Yes, there's a small group of catchers that are expected to absolutely crush the rest of the field:

Those two dots in the top right are Salvador Perez and J.T. Realmuto. They both give you a leg-up on the field with their elevated playing time and production at the plate (Perez for HR/RBI, Realmuto for a bit of everything, and possible double-digit steals).

However, this is all baked into the cost. We are seeing higher ADPs on catchers in recent years as people chase these outlier players. I just cannot make myself do it. I would much rather spend my top draft picks and auction dollars on more reliable positions. I will continue to be one of the last people drafting a catcher, especially in a one-catcher league - which most leagues are.

Priority Targets: None

Avoids: Salvador Perez, J.T. Realmuto, Keibert Ruiz, Adley Rutschman

General Targets: Elias Diaz, Travis d'Arnaud

More reading: Adventures in Scarcity, Catchers Edition

First Base

It is not the shallowest position on the board, but the production here is still pretty top-heavy. We have five names standing up above the rest: Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Freddie Freeman, Matt Olson, Paul Goldschmidt, and Pete Alonso.

Given that I don't plan on using a first or second-rounder on the first two names here given that I'm attacking steals, I've found myself going hard after the Olson-Goldy-Alonso trio.

I gravitate towards Olson and Alonso more because of their improved strikeout rates last year, as well as the stuff we have seen with the baseball over the last couple of seasons. I put together a Twitter thread here about this. I looked at various specific combinations of launch angle and exit velocity and saw what percent of the time they went for a homer, compared between 2019 and 2021. What became clear was that it was indeed harder to hit homers in 2021. Scott White from CBS also wrote about this here. The takeaway here is that homers aren't quite as easy to find and we should lean a bit harder into the guys that really swing the bat hard.

Priority Target: Pete Alonso 

Other Targets: Matt Olson, Joey Votto, Bobby Dalbec, Brandon Belt, Nathaniel Lowe

Avoids: Jose Abreu, Jared Walsh, Ty France, Anthony Rizzo

Second Base

This is the second-shallowest position (to catcher). Of course, we cannot prioritize every single position, fantasy drafts are a zero-sum game. I can't sit here and say that you should prioritize five difference positions with your first four picks. If everything else is equal, I am trying to get a second basemen somewhat early in the draft.

The top dog at the position is Trea Turner, who I would take at #1 in most situations. After that, you have Ozzie Albies and then, in my opinion, a pretty steep drop-off down to Marcus Semien and Whit Merrifield. You will most likely have to use a top-two pick to get Albies, but if I would miss on those two I'm probably waiting a bit – but honestly, I'm not likely to miss on one of those two.

Quite possibly my favorite player at the position based on price is Ketel Marte, who often gets drafted after pick 70, which really doesn't make a ton of sense to me. He isn't likely to steal many bases, but the contact and power combination he has in his bat makes him one of the higher-ceiling players in the game anyways. He could hit 30 homers with a .300 batting average if things break the right way for him.

Priority Targets: Trea Turner, Ozzie Albies, Ketel Marte

Other Targets: Jorge Polanco, Tommy Edman, Luis Urias

Avoids: Marcus Semien, Jazz Chisholm, DJ LeMahieu

Shortstop

By the numbers, shortstop is the deepest position in the game this year. Eight different shortstops go in the top 50 picks, so chances are that you will end up with a good one. There are plenty of ways to build a team, but you'll *probably* want to look for some steals here.

One thing you don't want to do is be filling a starting middle infield spot late in the draft, because there is really not much going on down the list in terms of safety or upside. You can wait a bit on shortstop because of all of the great options, but make sure you have two or three middle infielders in the first 150 picks or you're in some trouble.

My favorite here is once again Trea Turner, who is probably everybody's favorite. Besides him, I'm really interested in Corey Seager and Willy Adames. One of those three will be my starting shortstop on almost every team I draft.

Priority Targets: Trea Turner, Corey Seager, Willy Adames

Other Targets: Trevor Story, Jorge Polanco, Luis Urias, Gleyber Torres, Brandon Crawford

Avoids: Xander Bogaerts, Javier Baez, Brendan Rodgers

Third Base

This is a danger zone. There are shockingly few options at third base after the first few names are off the board. However, if you prioritize a steals source and a second baseman early in the draft, you have probably missed the boat. That's fine, everybody is going to miss a boat or two in the draft, but it's still important to keep in mind the top-heaviness here.

The top tier is clear Jose Ramirez by himself, and then a significant step downwards (because of steals) to Rafael Devers and Manny Machado. Machado is a guy that can slip past pick 25 at times, which makes me gravitate towards him early in round three if I have one of the first picks of a snake draft. I have started teams with Trea Turner, an ace pitcher, and then Machado and felt really good about it.

I'm fine with missing and hoping for the best though, there really aren't many show-stopping bats here for your opponents to get ahead with.

Priority Targets: None

Other Targets: Manny Machado, Austin Riley, Justin Turner, Luis Urias, Josh Donaldson

Avoids: Adalberto Mondesi, DJ LeMahieu, Ryan McMahon, Matt Chapman

Outfield

Outfield is such a large position that it's hard to really drill down on it. There is really no consistency to outfielders either, there are power specialists and speed specialists and different player types all over the draft board.

One thing to note is that things look much different between three and five starting OF leagues. A 12-team, 5 OF league will start 60 outfielders, which is a crazy big number and that makes your team pretty gross to look at if you don't get a couple of outfielders somewhat early.

As usual, there are plenty of cheap power sources in the outfield, so I will definitely be reserving a starting spot or two for some of those names that you'll find below. Let's just get to my targets and avoids.

Priority Targets: One of Luis Robert, Tyler O'Neill, Byron Buxton (probably not two, definitely not all three), Andrew Vaughn

Other Targets: Yordan Alvarez, George Springer, Kyle Schwarber, Jarred Kelenic, Akil Baddoo, Hunter Renfroe, Jorge Soler, Michael Conforto

Avoids: Starling Marte, Christian Yelich, Cody Bellinger, Adolis Garcia, Eddie Rosario, Avisail Garcia

Starting Pitcher

Talked about my general strategy above. I'll miss the top two tiers of SP more often than not and then draft 2-4 names between picks 50 and 100. There are plenty of high upside arms late in the draft, but this doesn't seem like a great year to put a ton of chips on those names. I'll take a few, but I really want most of my pitching staff taken care of by pick 150 or so. That probably means depending on the waiver wire for catchers and steals as I miss the top names as I catch up in pitching. Here are my targets and avoids.

Targets: Aaron Nola, Lance Lynn, Frankie Montas, Charlie Morton, Yu Darvish, Shane McClanahan, Shane Baz, Pablo Lopez, Eduardo Rodriguez, Tanner Houck, Patrick Sandoval, John Means, Sonny Gray

Avoids: Zack Wheeler, Julio Urias, Chris Sale, Max Fried, Jose Berrios, Trevor Rogers, Justin Verlander, Blake Snell, Carlos Rodon, Tyler Mahle, Chris Bassitt, Lance McCullers Jr., Mike Clevinger

Relief Pitcher

For me, this is very simple this year. If I'm in a normal league where I can pick up players every day or week, I'm not spending on relievers. Let the rest of the league use their valuable picks on the top guys, and just buy a few cheap guys late and then be ready to work the waivers to stay competitive in saves.

Targets: Lucas Sims, Scott Barlow, Corey Knebel, Lou Trivino

Avoids: Josh Hader, Liam Hendriks, Raisel Iglesias

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