Fantasy Baseball Player Notes
2022 Fantasy Baseball Draft Notes
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8.
Corbin Burnes
SP
Why are you even reading this? If you're a fantasy manager who likes to draft starting pitchers in the first round and Burnes is there, you grab him. If he falls to the second round, you grab him. If he falls to the third, you're probably playing fantasy football, and he's probably a better QB than Carson Wentz, so grab him. Burnes won the Cy Young last year and there's nothing in any of his stat projections that show any reason for concern. He's got overall SP1 capabilities. Don't overthink it.
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19.
Brandon Woodruff
SP
It's going to be awfully hard to score on the Brewers this summer. Woodruff is a Cy Young candidate. His rotation mate Corbin Burnes won the award last year and could again this year. Don't be scared off by Woodruff's miniscule win totals from last season. He only won nine games due to the worst run support in the National League. Had he received the top-15 run support that Burnes had, Woodruff could have easily eclipsed 15 victories. He's projected for a fourth straight season of outstanding K, ERA and WHIP stats. If you can somehow pair Burnes with Woodruff early, you may not need to grab another starting pitcher before the 10th round.
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44.
Josh Hader
RP
Every year, there are arguments about the value of closers. Fantasy managers who consistently win leagues say having one or two elite closers is a season maker. Fantasy managers who say closers are always available on the wire and to never draft one before the 12th round usually spend August and September complaining that they lost the league by a half-dozen points because of a lack of saves and a bloated WHIP. Hader isn't just a closer. His numbers are so spectacular in just one or two innings of work at a time that rostering him is like getting half a season of an ace starter while also getting 35 saves. His Ks can cover for your lower-tier starters who can't reach that baseline K/IP number you want, and his paper-thin WHIP can move the needle. If you're on the wrong end of the snake draft and he's there at the fifth-round/sixth-round turn, grab him and start the closer run.
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51.
Freddy Peralta
SP
He's not going to surprise anyone anymore. The young Brewers starter shocked everyone last season, posting 195 Ks in just 144.1 innings with a sub-3.00 ERA and a shocking sub-1.00 WHIP. Amazingly, despite those gaudy stats, he'll be the third Brewers starter drafted. Unreal. If he can get any run support, 15 wins isn't out of the question. Expect Peralta's ERA and WHIP to rise some, but the strikeouts are for real. If he's your SP3, you have a VERY good pitching staff. Now go find some bats.
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81.
Christian Yelich
LF
The way you regard Yelich depends on what type of fantasy manager you are. Do you like rolling the dice on potential superstars who can't stay upright? Or would you rather take a lesser player and know you'll get 150 games out of him? If you're in the latter category, Yelich is probably on your do-not-draft list. His upside is huge, but the now-30-year-old outfielder dealt with serious back issues last season, and back injuries have a tendency to reoccur.
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117.
Willy Adames
SS
If ever a player needed a trade, it was Adames. In his career, he has batted just .217 with a .616 OPS in Tropicana Field. And he was particularly dreadful with the Rays last year, slashing .197/.254/.371. He was an entirely different player after his trade to the Brewers, hitting 20 home runs in 99 games, with nearly a .900 OPS. He's probably due for some regression, as he outperformed his expected batting average and slugging percentage pretty significantly last season. But even if you knock off 20% of what we saw him do with the Brewers last season, he'd still be a startable option in fantasy. He's unlikely to take the leap into stardom, but he can and should certainly maintain the leap he took last year into relevance.
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136.
Hunter Renfroe
CF,RF
Renfroe has always had power but put it all together last year for Boston and became one of their most reliable and dependable bats.He cut his strikeout rate to just 22.7% and although he was still much better against lefties, he made major gains against righties such that he went far beyond potentially being placed in a platoon situation. Moving to the Brewers can only help his power, so bank on 30 home runs with helpful counting stats everywhere but steals.
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195.
Kolten Wong
2B
Wong played extremely well with the Brewers last year, hitting 14 home runs and stealing 12 bases in just 116 games. Wong is what he at this point - he'll chip in double digit steals and homers with a batting average that will help you, but there's no chance of a breakout season given his level of quality of contact. He should lead off for the Brewers so expect plenty of runs scored, and his totals should be enough to make him a passable middle infielder for fantasy purposes.
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224.
Luis Urias
2B,3B,SS
Urias exploded last year, putting up 23 homers with 149 combined runs and RBI. Just to put that into perspective, Urias's high in home runs before last year was four, and his best combined runs and RBI total was 51. Most of his production was backed up by the underlying data, as his hard-contact rates exploded. He'd be a prime sleeper but he's battling a quad injury that is going to shut him down until early April at least, so knock him down your draft board a bit with the injury news. Performance-wise, however, last year looks legitimate.
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248.
Andrew McCutchen
LF
McCutchen batted just .222 last year with the worst strikeout rate of his career (23%), but he provided plenty of value elsewhere. His walk rate was a robust 14.1%, he slugged 27 home runs, and fell just short of 160 combined runs and RBI. He'll move to Milwaukee this year, and so his power should translate once again, and he'll likely get to extra at-bats as the DH. He's not exciting, but even the batting average should bounce back a bit given his expected stats last year, so don't be afraid to pull the trigger late.
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264.
Devin Williams
RP
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266.
Rowdy Tellez
1B
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297.
Aaron Ashby
SP,RP
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301.
Omar Narvaez
C
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346.
Eric Lauer
SP
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353.
Lorenzo Cain
CF
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386.
Keston Hiura
1B
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453.
Adrian Houser
SP
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481.
Brent Suter
RP
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499.
Jake Cousins
RP
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501.
Tyrone Taylor
LF,CF,RF
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535.
Pedro Severino
C
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558.
Brad Boxberger
RP
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662.
Josh Lindblom
RP
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667.
Victor Caratini
C
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782.
Jace Peterson
1B,2B,3B,LF,RF
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793.
Corey Ray
RF
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864.
Hoby Milner
RP
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888.
Dylan File
SP
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913.
Jandel Gustave
RP
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944.
Trevor Gott
RP
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969.
Ethan Small
SP
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1030.
Mike Brosseau
1B,2B,3B
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1034.
Luke Barker
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1039.
Angel Perdomo
RP
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1045.
J.C. Mejia
SP,RP
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1050.
Alex Jackson
C
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1227.
Luis Perdomo
SP,RP
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1330.
Miguel Sanchez
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1378.
David Dahl
LF,RF
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1423.
Abraham Almonte
LF
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1447.
Pablo Reyes
3B
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1450.
Alec Bettinger
P
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1474.
Jonathan Davis
CF
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1481.
Mario Feliciano
C
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1494.
Justin Topa
RP
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1580.
Tyler White
1B
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1653.
Brice Turang
SS
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