2022 Fantasy Baseball Insertion Ranking - Arizona Diamondbacks
Creating my 2022 fantasy baseball rankings one team at a time
Explanation & Other Team Links Here
Hitters to Rank
Ketel Marte
Daulton Varsho
Josh Rojas
Carson Kelly
Pavin Smith
Ketel Marte
Marte missed quite nearly half of the year in 2021, but his final line of .318/.377/.532 makes him look very close to a stud hitter. He homered at a better-than-average pace of 26 PA/HR, with a slightly above average barrel rate (8.9%), and a strong max exit velo of 116. That is rare to find with a guy with this kind of contact ability (16% K%, 85% contact%). At the ripe age of 28, there isn’t a ton to worry about with Marte outside of the anemic lineup around him. Arizona will figure to be one of the lowest-scoring offenses in the league.
He did struggle to hit for power in 2020 (2 homers in 195 PAs), but that does not seem like something that is likely to happen again given the bat speed. He may fail to be better-than-average again, I suppose, given his ground-ball heavy profile (48%, 45%, 46% GB% last three seasons), but most outcomes would have him being a 20+ homer guy. The other slight downside is we haven’t seen many steals from him the last two (short) seasons (just three in nearly a full season of PA’s between 2020 and 2021. The downside here is a guy that hits for a good average, doesn’t help a ton in power or steals, and struggles to put up counting stats given the offense around him.
We will have to be very price sensitive on Marte in drafts, but there is no questioning the batting average and homer upside here.
Daulton Varsho
A formerly hyped prospect, Varsho has struggled in his time in the Majors for the most part. His career slash line is .231/.310/.418, but it was improved in 2021 with his .246/.318/.437 marks. He did hit .275 and slug .505 after July 1st with a strong 22 PA/HR, and the guy isn’t a zero in steals either (he swiped six in about a half years’ worth of PAs). The raw power doesn’t seem to be huge, but it’s not horrible either and this guy is still young. He did limit the strikeouts pretty well to 22%, and he walked at a league-average clip.
The whole appeal with Varsho is that he’s catcher-eligible, which has his ADP just outside the top 100 at the current moment (103). That is quite a price to pay for a catcher that you don’t expect really great production from, but great production and 550+ PAs is not out of the question given the youth (25 years old) and former top prospect pedigree. You’re taking quite a risk going with Varsho in the top 15 rounds, but the payoff could be huge.
Josh Rojas
Rojas was a very popular breakout pick in 2021, but that didn’t happen for him. His slash line wasn’t horrible (.264/.341/.411), but it wasn’t helpful for fantasy either - and his counting stats were quite bad (11 homers, 69 runs, 44 RBI, 9 steals in 550 PA).
There were flashes of brilliance (although one of them came in Spring Training), but overall it was a down-trend for him throughout the year:
He slugged just .359 after August 1st with 2 homers in 184 PAs. His K% and BB% were pretty much league average all year, which keeps him afloat as a steals guy.
This is a guy who stole 33 bags in the minors in 2019, so there is the upside of a 25+ steal season. Despite his average performance, the D’Backs led him off 71 times. If he is the team’s everyday lead-off guy the upside would certainly justify being rostered in your fantasy league just for steals alone, as he’s not a guy who profiles to be horrific in batting average or a zero in power production. He is interesting and could prove to be quite a nice post-hype sleeper pick especially considering his position eligibility (2B/SS/OF).
Carson Kelly
Another catcher that doesn’t profile for more than ~400 or so PAs, but he takes a ton of walks and will hit some homers. His PA projection will be important, but he’s one of the types I like to take super late in drafts to fill the catcher spot. He is not going to crater you in anything like a lot of other catchers will (besides steals, but no catchers add steals).
Pavin Smith
Not really sure why he’s being drafted in the top 400 (goes at 350 right now). He showed no power (5% Brl%, 49.5 PA/HR, 110.8 max velo) or steals (one steal in 545 PA). He did hit righties decently (.277 average, .442 SLG, 39.5 PA/HR), so he’s not a total zero in super deep leagues, but I don’t see why you wouldn’t go with someone with much more upside this late in the draft.
Pitchers to Rank
Zac Gallen
Mark Melancon
Zac Gallen
Gallen feels like a guy that we should end up being excited about given how awesome he was before last year, and how that season got derailed by injury. His ADP has taken a major hit down to 150+. Looking at the career stats, first:
You can see the K% and BB% were both average at best last year, but they weren’t egregiously bad. The ERA seems to have been bloated by the huge homer issue. He’s never been a high-groundball guy, but the command and the deceptiveness both seemed to be really, really good prior to last year.
He missed time early in the year, but after the all-star break he stayed on the field. From August 1st on, he still wasn’t very good (25.8% K%, 7.7% BB%, 8.3% Brl%, 4.04 ERA, 1.24 WHIP), but the numbers were better than his season totals.
He’s not going to be a 30%+ strikeout guy, and the walk rate is questionable as well (we’ve seen guys change their walk rate in a hurry, especially young guys - so hold on to hope there).
Stuff-wise, his fastball did not get whiffs (4.9% is really bad), but the location seemed to be okay as he kept a strong CSW% (30.2%) and an average Brl% of 8.1%.
With this many pitches in his arsenal, it was surprising to see him so dependent on the four-seamer, and once you see that it’s not surprising that he wasn’t all that great in 2021. Looking back to 2020, he threw his cutter a ton more (25% clip), but with not great results (.500 SLG, but that did come with a respectable 28% Whiff%). Maybe he comes back to that pitch a bit more with a clean bill of health in 2022 - I could see that helping quite a bit.
The really interesting part of this is that he has all three of the changeup, curve, and slider to work with. He didn’t throw the changeup in the zone very much, and the slider got crushed (16.7% Brl%) on a small sample of pitches, but just the sheer depth of the arsenal gives Gallen more paths to success in the future.
I guess when all it said and done here, his price doesn’t seem all that unfair. I would take him a bit ahead of 150, I think, but it’s not like this guy should be a top-50 pick. I really doubt you’re going to be super disappointed getting him above pick 125 though, so I’ll probably be very interested.
Mark Melancon
The team change is disastrous for Melancon. I’m not willing to trust the elite ratios repeating from an aged reliever like this, and the saves projection has to be low. The job security should be fine (?), but I’d rather spend a premium pick on a different reliever.