Drafting a fantasy baseball team takes patience. Instead of patience, you can use this list of ten hitters to target; follow these easy instructions – 1) select the hitter before their ADP. 2) ????? 3) profit. Of course, you don’t want to draft them too early because that destroys your edge, which is why you have to be patient. Feel the ebb and flow of your draft, ride the wave and be confident; I’ve crunched the numbers, so you don’t have to.

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Bryan Reynolds (OF – PIT) (ADP – 108)

Drafting Bryan Reynolds at pick 108 is like eating a steak dinner at hamburger prices. How is a guy who finished top-50 on the player rater drafted after Dalton Varsho? Reynolds slashed .302/.390/.522 with 24 home runs (5.5 WAR) in 159 games last season. His OPS was higher than Freddie Freeman‘s (1B – FA). This year’s fantasy buzzwords are ‘stolen bases,’ and Reynolds’ 88th-percentile sprint speed is on par with Starling Marte (OF – NYM). He’s Austin Meadows (OF – TB) circa 2019 with an all-fields approach that makes him immune to the shift. Steamer projects .278/.364/.470 with 22 home runs and five steals; maybe that’s why he’s deep value? That projection would mean going from a .912 OPS in 2021 to .834 in 2022; unlikely considering his Rojo red Statcast supports the 2021 numbers! I believe Steamer is weighing Reynolds’ nightmare 2020 season too heavily. Then there’s the hot stove talk that the Pirates will trade him at some point which would be a boon for his R/RBI totals. I’m all over him like white on rice at his ADP.

Luis Robert (OF – CWS) (ADP – 23)

Luis Robert is in the ‘Lobster Dinner’ tier of outfielders this season; pricey but worth it. He’s a stat sheet stuffer and potential top-five pick in 2023. A former top prospect with enough pedigree to feed an animal shelter, Robert broke out in 2021, slashing .338/.378/.567 with 13 homers and six steals in 68 games. Robert sprints faster than Tim Anderson (SS – CWS) and Bo Bichette (SS – TOR), so he’ll get coveted steals, and I love his Rojo red Statcast. Robert’s revamped swing fueled his star turn; he now has a more direct path from bat to ball. On the downside, injury risk mars his draft stock, but his ceiling approximates Ronald Acuna Jr. (OF – ATL). I don’t expect him to hit .338 again, not with an unsustainable .394 BABIP. Steamer projects .285/.339/.506 with 30 home runs and 14 steals. That’s his floor.

Salvador Perez (C – KC) (ADP – 34)

Imagine winning a free car in a raffle. You show up at the dealership and see a sea of Hondas; disappointed, you decide to leave, but on the way out you see a brand new Aventador! Salvador Perez is that Lambo and the Honda’s are other catchers. ‘Salvy’ finished 22nd on the player rater last season; the next best catcher was Will Smith (C – LAD) at 173. Perez broke the single-season home run record for a catcher (48) and led the majors in long balls (15 more than the next catcher). He slashed .273/.316/.544 in 161 games (23 more than any other catcher), had 45 more RBIs and scored 17 more runs than the next closest catcher. Salvy is like the Travis Kelce of fantasy baseball. Perez’s Statcast is Rojo red except for plate discipline, which is why he doesn’t hit for a high average, and he won’t give you stolen bases, but neither will most catchers. Steamer projects .260/.302/.504 with 37 homers in 141 games. If I don’t get Salvy, I’m waiting a very long time to draft a catcher. 

Tyler O’Neill (OF – STL) (ADP – 84)

Tyler O’Neill started at the bottom (of the Cardinals lineup last season), and now he’s here (on my list of breakout players). He’s got a better barrel rate than Matt Olson (1B – OAK) or Brandon Lowe (2B – TB) and a faster sprint speed than Billy Hamilton (OF – FA). In 2021, Stolen bases were as scarce as toilet paper circa March 2020, and St. Louis was 8th in attempts per game, making O’Neill a 12-pack in the discount aisle. He slashed .286/.352/.560 with 34 homers and 15 steals and finished 42nd on the player rater last season. O’Neill got better as the season got longer (.942 OPS, 153 wRC+ in the second half). One knock on him is a lack of plate discipline, but excepting that, his Statcast is Rojo red. Steamer projects 37 home runs, 13 steals, a .251 batting average, but a career .338 BABIP in 892 at-bats gives him batting average upside. 

Brandon Lowe (2B/OF – TB) (ADP – 67)

Brandon Lowe is the Super Smash hammer at the top of the Rays lineup. He hit .247/.340/.523 last year, finishing sixth in MLB with 39 home runs (career .255/.341/.518, 330 games). Now he has the pleasure of hitting in front of future HOFer Wander Franco (SS – TB). Lowe was 49th on the player rater, but managers are drafting him after guys like Alex Bregman (3B – HOU) and Adalberto Mondesi (SS – KC), who are still living off their pre-COVID reputation. Lowe put up huge numbers in the second half (.959 OPS, 162 wRC+) after cutting down on his strikeouts (32.2% to 21.1% half-over-half). Steamer projects him to hit .244/.333/.479 and lead second basemen in homers with 32. But, of course, the best ability is availability, and he played in 149 games last year and 56 the year before.

Jo Adell (OF – LAA) (ADP – 247)

If Jo Adell‘s name sounds familiar to you, you might play too much fantasy baseball. He hit .246/.295/.408 last year and is .205/.255/.339 for his career; it’s fair to say he’s not a household name. But the 23-year-old was the fourteenth best prospect in baseball before graduating in 2019 (one spot behind Wander Franco). Adell slugged .592 with 23 home runs and eight stolen bases in 311 at-bats at Triple-A last year. His career line across all minor league levels is .295/.356/.537. The big news is he cut his strikeout rate from 41.7% in 2020 to 22.9% in 2021 before an abdominal strain ended his season. He’s got 98th-percentile sprint speed, which is faster than Billy Hamilton. I’m taking a flier on him, hoping that he gives me fistfuls of stolen bases, and the rest is gravy. He reminds me of Jazz Chisholm (2B – MIA), and Jazz is going nearly 150 spots higher than him.

Bobby Witt Jr. (SS – KC) (ADP – 100)

If you collect baseball cards, you’re probably in the market for a Bobby Witt Jr. card; he’s this year’s, Wander Franco. Witt was last year’s Minor League Player of the Year; between Double-A and Triple-A, he hit .290 with 33 home runs and 29 stolen bases in 123 games. Witt is ready for the show, and I’m optimistic that once the lockout ends, so will fraudulent service time manipulation. Steamer projects 24 home runs and 18 stolen bases with a .267/.321/.481 slash line in 134 games, which seems fair but beatable. I wouldn’t be surprised if Witt is going in the top three rounds next season. He’s got a better power/speed profile than Wander Franco right now, while Franco has a higher floor. I see Witt as the Royals’ version of Pat Mahomes.

Francisco Lindor (SS – NYM) (ADP – 41)

Francisco Lindor hurt a lot of people last season. Drafting him was like buying fake Gucci in Chinatown for $3,000. He was a second-round pick who fell out of the top-two-hundred due to a strained oblique and the Mets being cursed (just kidding, Mets fans). It was his worst season as a pro, hitting .230/.322/.412 in 125 games. There were rumors of in-fighting in the Mets clubhouse or the culture shock in New York; I don’t know why he was terrible last year. Lindor’s a career .278/.343/.478 hitter with two 30/20 seasons and double-digit steals every year (except 2020). His Statcast is cantaloupe melon red, and his struggles were made worse by a .248 BABIP, the lowest of his career and nearly 50 points lower than his .292 career average. After returning from injury in September, Lindor hit .267/.359/.574 with nine home runs (45% of his season total), including a three-home run game. I expect more of that in 2022. I’m not ready to write him off after one lousy season; he’ll score a ton of runs and return to the top-two rounds of drafts in 2023.

Jesse Winker (OF – CIN) (ADP – 121) 

Reds fans sing folk songs about Jesse Winker. Last April, he had a three-homer game and the governor declared it a statewide holiday. Winker hit .305/.394/.556 in 110 games but finished 17 plate appearances shy of qualifying for the batting title. The 28-year-old’s .950 OPS would have been sixth in the majors. Winker’s Statcast profile was Rojo red (except sprint speed), and his xwOBA was higher than Matt Olson, Manny Machado (3B – SD) and Luis Robert. Steamer projects .279/.374/.497 with 27 home runs in 133 games, but Winker is a career .288/.385/.504 hitter, so I think he can do better.

Corey Seager (SS – TEX) (ADP – 55)

Corey Seager is like a retired lawyer; he’s got nothing left to prove. The 27-year-old World Series MVP slashed .306/.394/.521 in 95 games with the Dodgers last season. Now he’ll move to a worse situation in Texas, but his Statcast profile is Rojo red (except sprint speed), and his second-half numbers were sensational, slashing .335/.417/.592 (169 wRC+) in 58 games. I believe Seager will have no problem living up to the expectations of a big contract; his career is on a Hall of Fame trajectory. Steamer projects .290/.367/.505 with 25 home runs in 136 games. I’d take him over Xander Bogaerts (SS – BOS), who’s going rounds earlier (nothing against Bogaerts except his stolen base numbers are declining). 

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Lucas Babits-Feinerman is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Lucas, check out his archive and follow him @WSonFirst.