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Thunder Dan Palyo highlights his five favorite players to draft in 2022 fantasy baseball leagues as breakout candidates and draft targets who could win leagues.
MLB season is almost here and I couldn't be more excited. I am totally copying my buddy Jon Anderson here as he put out his favorite five players last week and had previously brought me and a bunch of other baseball analysts on his fantasy baseball podcast for a special "my guys" episode.
I've been more involved in the MLB preseason content this season than ever before and chatting with so many amazing RotoBaller baseball writers has really rekindled my love of fantasy baseball. If you've followed me for DFS stuff in the past, that's still my forte and what I do most of the time, but I'm really looking forward to this season-long fantasy baseball this year.
So without any further ado, here are my five favorite names to draft for 2022.
Logan Webb, San Francisco Giants
My love affair with Logan Webb is fairly well-documented. And it all started last year on May 11th. After muddling through his first six starts of the season, Webb struck out 10 Rangers in six innings and allowed only four baserunners in an incredibly efficient outing.
From that point forward, he was simply one of the better pitchers in baseball. In his final 20 starts, he went 10-0 with a 2.40 ERA and 125 strikeouts in 116 innings. He allowed just six homers and walked 22. And he was one of the best-kept secrets in DFS as the field was slow to catch on to just how dominant he was becoming.
It's really fun to see a young pitcher come into his own and figure out how to best use their stuff. As the graphic shows, Webb ditched his four-seamer and cutter almost entirely in favor of his sinker, slider, and change-up. His sinker was one of the best pitches in baseball (in my opinion and the data backs it up) in terms of being both a swing and miss pitch and inducing ground balls. He sat right around 93 to 95 MPH with it and was able to place it pretty much wherever he wanted to with pinpoint control.
No regular sinker thrower last season had more SINK on theirs than Logan Webb. This 93 MPH gem had 39 inches of drop (with gravity) and also broke 18 inches horizontally. 😬 pic.twitter.com/gpQPOI2sZU
— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) January 31, 2022
25-year-old pitchers with a 60% groundball rate, 26.5% strikeout rate, and 6% walk rate don't exactly grow on trees. And young pitchers with three quality pitches and above-average control are also not easy to find. Some might suggest that Webb could regress this season, but I think the much more likely outcome is another really good, possibly great year with a solid offense for run support and a pitcher-friendly home park. He's not a well-known name among casual baseball fans, but Logan Webb is a stat-loving sabermetrician's (like yours truly) dream pitcher.
Matt Olson, Atlanta Braves
My good friend Brian Entrekin (you may know him as "KC Bubba") wrote about Olson's arrival in Atlanta here and I'll save some time here by saying that the general consensus around the industry is that it's a good thing and potentially a nice boost to his home run production.
His massive year in 2021 was due to a huge decrease in his strikeout rate. He cut his K% by a whopping 14.6% - which was the single biggest decrease of any hitter in baseball. He also walked a career-high 13% of the time which boosted his OBP to a whopping .371.
Olson simply did everything well last year, including hit left-handed pitching which I covered in some detail here in my breakdown of hitter splits last week.
I know Freeman has the pedigree and the larger sample size of hitting for both average and power, but Olson is in the prime of his career and couldn't have asked for a betting landing spot for his power than Atlanta. I truly feel like he could crack the top-20 this season and he's still going off the board in the late third round despite everything pointing towards a huge year. I'm all in at this point and there's no going back.
Tyler O'Neill, St. Louis Cardinals
Guess who had the second-biggest increase in barrel rate from 2020 to 2021? It would probably be weird if the answer was anyone else than Tyler O'Neill considering you already know who I am talking about in this section, right? Yeah - O'Neill barrelled up 17.9% of balls he hit last year which was a 9.7% increase from 2020 and second only to the AL MVP Shohei Ohtani.
When O'Neill hits the ball, he hits it hard and it usually goes pretty far. His batted ball metrics are tremendous.
But the strikeout rate and lack of contact are the biggest issues for O'Neill right now. He had by far the best season of his career in 2021 when he hit 34 bombs while driving in 80 runs and stealing 15 bases. If he can cut that K rate even by 5-6% this year and make more contact he could hit better than his career average of .260 and put up some awesome power numbers. If he follows the Olson blueprint of making more contact we could see 40+ homers and 100 RBI, I firmly believe it.
Jake S… I mean Tyler O’Neill just crushed a home run 451 feet! pic.twitter.com/LeapASjRwx
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) June 10, 2021
Even if we get similar production to 2021, I'd be happy with that from O'Neill if I take him in the 3rd round. 35 homer/15 steal guys don't exactly grow on trees, right? I think we have in O'Neill is a remarkable athlete at the peak of his physical prime with all the tools to be a superstar and now the opportunity to make it happen. I love his lineup spot sandwiched in between Goldy and Arenado and I think despite a slow Spring so far, he's primed for another huge year.
Patrick Sandoval, Los Angeles Angels
So this is not the first time I have discussed Sandoval this preseason and my affinity for him goes back to the second half of last season when he was winning us money in DFS. In today's day and age, it's easy to fall in love with hard throwers or guys with crazy big breaking balls. But I'm a sucker for a good changeup and the pitch tunneling that Sandoval has with this fastball/change-up combo is simply amazing. See for yourself.
Here's the full overlay of Patrick Sandoval's CH/FB https://t.co/EbEycrCrzx pic.twitter.com/bBKySmaGjI
— Alex Fast (@AlexFast8) July 26, 2021
Sandoval sits around 92-93 MPH with his four-seamer so he's not overpowering hitters. He threw far fewer four-seamers last year than in 2019 and made the changeup his primary offspeed pitch. It was his best pitch with a massive 51.4% whiff rate last year. He also upped his slider usage, which was a good thing as it's his second-best pitch. He throws a curveball, too, and mixed all four pitches effectively at times to the tune of a 15.7% swinging-strike rate and 31.6% CSW.
As I mentioned with Webb, I love guys who can strikeout hitters while also maintaining a solid ground ball rate. While Sandoval's isn't anywhere close to the elite 60% that Webb posted, he's still at a solid 52% which plays quite nicely. Without overpowering stuff, he will have to rely on inducing soft contact, which he did well last year as had the 19th best (lowest) hard contact rate of 21.5% among qualified pitchers.
His walk rate is pushing 10% and he will have to continue to improve his control, but I am enamored with his ability to miss bats when he has his stuff. He's the kind of guy who take a big leap this year and is going far too late in drafts for his potential. He's turning into a pitcher, not just a thrower and I'm ready for the breakout in 2022.
Michael Kopech, Chicago White Sox
It's debatable just how important Statcast numbers are for pitchers (there was quite a debate going on Twitter yesterday with Derek Carty and others) but Kopech's slider is impressive anyway. Even if you ignore the expected stats, exit velocity, and hard contact - the K%, Whiff %, fastball velocity and spin were all elite in 2021.
It's been a long road back from injuries that derailed him early in his career, but Kopech was simply outstanding as a reliever last year. His stuff is electric and he was throwing gas right by hitters while racking up strikeouts.
Michael Kopech painting with 101. Go Sox pic.twitter.com/7xOiyYJid1
— Vinnie Parise (@VinnieParise) October 11, 2021
I know there are concerns about his workload as the White Sox transition him into the rotation, but if he can maintain the same effectiveness that he had last year in five to six innings per start this season, we are looking at a huge breakout year. The White Sox passed on resigning Carlos Rodon for several reasons, but one of those reasons had to be that they knew they wanted Kopech in the rotation and expect big things from him.
He has dual eligibility at SP and RP and going in the middle rounds of drafts. I've been scooping him up early as he's simply far more talented than most of the other remaining starters that late in drafts. The kid has Cy Young-winning upside (maybe not this year but at some point).
Good luck in your drafts and thank goodness that baseball is almost back! I can't wait for that first slate of MLB DFS action on Thursday!
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