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Jon Anderson highlights his five favorite players to draft in 2022 fantasy baseball leagues as breakout candidates.
It's "My Guys" time! I love seeing articles like this where we people who claim to be experts plant the flag on players we love for the year. It offers a good chance for review and accountability as well. I wrote this piece last year as well. If I'm being honest, I can't say it turned out great for me then. The five names:
The theme there was injury. Springer, Lopez, and Buxton all played amazingly well and backed up what I said about them, except they could not stay on the field. I can't use this as a cop-out either since injury risk was always a huge question for Springer and Buxton. It was not a bold take to say that those two names would perform well when healthy, so I have to count those as missed picks.
Pineda looked good early in the year, but the age and lack of dominating stuff caught up to him, resulting in him really not being a useful fantasy player. Montas proved to be a good pick, posting a really nice season overall and being one of the most dominant starters in the game in the second half. Let's try to do better this year, here are my five favorite names to draft for 2022.
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Willy Adames, Milwaukee Brewers
I am not typically a guy to take a trip down narrative street, but I've got the car gassed up this time. Last year, Willy Adames was traded from the Tampa Bay Rays to the Milwaukee Brewers, and he looked like a different player after the trade. More often than not when these things happen, it is just a product of randomness. This time, however, an interesting story was being told about Adames not seeing the ball as well in Tropicana Field due to the batter's eye.
If we look at his splits between games in Tampa and the rest, here's what we see:
| Park | PA | AVG | SLG | K% | Brl% |
| Tropicana Field | 70 | .156 | .328 | 40% | 11.1% |
| Everywhere Else | 484 | .277 | .503 | 26.4% | 11.4% |
After joining the Brewers, Adames hit .285, slugged .521, and hit 20 homers while stealing four bases in just 413 plate appearances. Those numbers are tough to keep up for anybody, and much less for a guy that we have seen as a pretty mediocre hitter for several years now. However, I think the upside that the narrative is true justifies the draft cost in a big way.
Milwaukee is a great place to hit, and the Brewers' offense could be quite good with the addition of Hunter Renfroe and the health improvement of Christian Yelich. I can see Adames hitting .270 with 25+ homers and 10 steals, which is a really, really good fantasy hitter.
Pete Alonso, New York Mets
The makeup of the actual ball being used is a bigger deal than a lot of people may realize. It was simply not as easy to hit a home run in 2020-2021 as 2018-2019. Signs point towards the same ball being used in 2022, which makes me want to really invest in the elite power hitters.
Few are as elite as Alonso, who leads the majors in home runs hit since 2019 with 106. The main thing that is taking Alonso from "someone I like" to "one of MY GUYS" is the dramatic improvements he made in the strikeout rate last year.
| Year | K% | Brl% |
| 2019 | 26.4% | 14.6% |
| 2020 | 25.5% | 12.8% |
| 2021 | 19.9% | 14.8% |
That is a massive improvement in the strikeout rate. It is typical to see a hitter lose some barrel rate as they improve there, but that wasn't the case with Alonso as you can see in that table.
One last reason to love Alonso is the relative weakness of the first base position. You have Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Freddie Freeman up top, but you have to use a valuable first or second-round pick on those two names, which I don't want to do because I want to get steals. Then Tier Three is Matt Olson, Paul Goldschmidt, and Pete Alonso before a pretty big falloff in terms of floor and ceiling. Alonso is my favorite of that trio and he actually tends to go third there as well. His price is perfect, and he provides such a rock-solid home run foundation that I just don't want to miss on him this year.
Eduardo Rodriguez, Detroit Tigers
We have seen a lot of E-Rod, this will be his seventh season in the bigs (and that is even with him missing the whole 2020 season). That makes his age of 28 pretty surprising to see. The career marks (4.16 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, 24.4% K%, 8.1% BB%) are mediocre for fantasy purposes, but two things are really working in his favor for 2022.
Firstly, he posted his best career K-BB ratio in 2021 (27.4% K% - 7.0% BB%). Those are big improvements on what he had done in his career. K-BB ratio is the most important stat to look at for pitchers, so I will always be wanting to jump on the guy that is getting better there.
Secondly, he moves from the Red Sox to the Detroit Tigers. No doubt, that is not good for his wins potential. However, everything else is a huge plus. Comerica Park is arguably the most pitcher-friendly park in the league now after other cavernous parks have moved their fences in recently. Also, the AL Central is an upgrade from the AL East in terms of strength of schedule. The White Sox will have an elite offense, but the Royals, Guardians, and Twins should end up near the bottom of the league.
If E-Rod can maintain a 20%+ K-BB% ratio, I think this is a guy that could nab some Cy Young votes.
Andrew Heaney, Los Angeles Dodgers
This is a very, very similar recommendation to Rodriguez. Heaney has been just awful over the last three seasons, posting ERAs of 4.91, 4.46, and most recently 5.83. The home run ball has eviscerated him (2.01 HR/9 last year, one of the worst marks you'll ever see). That makes him a pretty huge risk at starting pitcher, but the good news is that he costs almost nothing.
The reason for liking him is, once again, a surprisingly strong K-BB ratio. For his career, he has a 24.2% K% and a 6.7% BB%. In 2021, those marks were 26.9% and 7.3%. In 2019, he went for an elite 28.9% K% and a strong 7.3% BB%. That's a base you can work with.
He was done no favors by pitching in New York last year, and now he gets to come back to the left coast but this time with a more established team and pitching staff. The Dodgers have had no shortage of incredibly talented arms in their system in recent years, that must be said, but they do seem to get the most out of guys. This is a bit speculative, but things certainly can only go upwards for Heaney in 2022 and it's good to see him get a full season with a new coaching staff. The stuff is good enough to make for a really strong fantasy pitcher, and I'm betting that the Dodgers can get a really useful season out of him. He's a great guy to pick up with the last pick of your draft.
Max Kepler, Minnesota Twins
I have eaten crow on Kepler each of the last three seasons it seems, but I'm not full yet. In 2021, Kepler posted a 19.6% K% with a 10.8% barrel rate. Only 14 hitters in the whole league posted a K% below 20% and a barrel rate above 10%.
Those other names: Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Manny Machado, Juan Soto, Matt Olson, Corey Seager, Kyle Tucker, Freddie Freeman, Brandon Crawford, Jesse Winker, AJ Pollock, Jose Ramirez, Bryan Reynolds, Jorge Polanco. Quite a list!
Add onto that the 10 bases he stole in 2021 (in just 490 plate appearances, so presumedly he would have been a 12-15 steal guy if not for the injury), and you have a guy just bursting with upside. His batted ball profile does not really show him as a guy that can hit .270 or better given all the fly-balls he hits, but I think a 30 homer, 15 steal season is well within the range of outcomes for this guy. He's just 29-years-old as well, so within the "prime years" range.
The best reason to draft Kepler is that his draft stock has bottomed out. It seems the .211 batting average last year has scared the field off of him. That is understandable, but I have very little doubt that he'll make a significant improvement on that in 2022 (.225 BABIP last year). Right now, he's going well after pick 250, which is essentially a free player in most league types. Give me one more shot at Kepler this year to man an outfield slot for my fantasy teams.
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