2022 Fantasy Baseball Insertion Ranking - Texas Rangers
Creating my 2022 fantasy baseball rankings one team at a time
Explanation & Other Team Links Here
Hitters to Rank
Marcus Semien
Corey Seager
Adolis Garcia
Nathaniel Lowe
Joshua Jung
Isiah Kiner-Falefa
Marcus Semien
Semien went quite large in 2021, hitting 45 dingers and stealing 15 bases on a .265/.334/.538 line with the Blue Jays. That earned him a big payday in Texas where he’ll be likely for the rest of his career as he is already 31 years old.
The strange thing was that Semien’s 9.8% Brl% doesn’t mesh with his homer total. League-wide, 60% of barrels went for homers. For Semien, 90% of his barrels went for homers. It would seem that he took advantage of the small ballparks the Jays played in, but that’s not the case as his splits were almost identical:
Home: 358 PA, 22 HR, 16.3 PA/HR, 9.4% Brl%, .268 AVG, .551 SLG
Road: 366 PA, 23 HR, 15.9 PA/HR, 10.2% Brl%, .263 AVG, .526 SLG
Higher SLG at home despite a slightly lower homer rate, but anyways this isn’t as simple as attributing the power surge to the ballpark.
His K% stayed low (20%), but not quite as low as it had been in 2018-2019 (19% and 14%), but you’ll take it with the added pop. Even with the knowledge that there’s very little chance this guy hits 40 bombs again, you still have to project him for a strong batting average and double-digit steals to go with 25+ homers, which is quite a good fantasy player. He’s certainly earned himself the everyday role as the lead-off hitter for the Rangers, which could be nice with Seager behind him.
Projection systems have him around 95 runs, 30 bombs, 85 RBI, and 10 steals. Seems pretty fair to me.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Wander Franco, George Springer
Corey Seager
Only got to 409 PA with missed time in the middle of the year. Ended at .306/.394/.521 with 16 homers (25.6 PA/HR) and one steal. Great K% (16%) and BB% (11.7%). Hit too many ground-balls (47%), but that kept his batting average up a bit. He could probably trade 15 points in average for an extra 5-10 dingers, and maybe that will happen in Texas.
His barrel rate was quite good at 12%, and his max velo was huge at 115.3 with a strong mark in 90th percentile velo at 104.8 as well. He was on the flip side of that homer/barrel stat I mentioned with Semien - just 44% of his barrels went for homers. He really does profile as a great homer source if he can get more balls into the air. At worst you have a guy that will drive in runs and provide good average and great OBP while hitting you 25+ homers, so I’m a real fan of drafting Seager this year, especially if your first hitter pick isn’t an elite homer source.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Austin Riley, Pete Alonso
Adolis Garcia
We wouldn’t be talking about Garcia if not for the April and May he had.
Final line: 77 R, 31 HR, 90 RBI, 16 SB, .243 AVG, .454 SLG, 31% K%
April-May: 27 R, 16 HR, 41 RBI, 6 SB, .286 AVG, .589 SLG, 29% K%
He did almost half of his damage in the season’s first two months, and was a batting average and OBP crater the rest of the way home.
The saving grace were the steals. He still must make the short list of players capable of going 20/20 this year, but it will come with a cost. He’ll also be 29 this year, so he’s no true “sophomore”.
He seems like a poor man’s Franmil Reyes, but with a dozen steals, so in that way he’s kind of a rich man’s Franmil Reyes. Either way, I’d rather have Reyes because this seems like a guy who could go for a 35% K% and a .150 AVG for a couple of months and lose his job.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Jo Adell, Max Kepler
Nathaniel Lowe
Guy played all season long and went for 75 R, 18 HR, 72 RBI, 8 SB, a .264 AVG, and a .354 OBP. That’s pretty useful! Six (33%) of his homers and 22 (31%) of his RBI came in April, so that’s pretty weird. From May 1st onward he went for 12 homers, 50 RBI, six steals, and a .261 average.
His barrel rate (9.5%) and velocity metrics (113.9 max) seem to predict a higher homer rate (he went for just 36.5 PA/HR), but he did give away quite a few PAs to strikeouts (25.3%) and walks (12.2%). He also hit a ton of ground-balls (55%!). That was the 10th highest GB% in the league, so yeah that caps his homer upside. He is a much better pick in OBP leagues with that walk rate, but he has real potential for 25 homers (if he hits more fly balls) and 10 steals, and you’d think he’d have plenty of RBI opportunity as well.
His contact rate (79%) also seems to beat his 25% K%, but he doesn’t swing much which gets him into two-strike counts more than the usual hitter. I’d still say a 9.5% Brl, 25% K%, 12% BB%, and 79% Contact% is a really attractive combination of skills, especially for a guy going in the mid-200’s in ADP. And he plays a position that gets pretty shallow after the top 5-10 guys are gone. I’m pretty on board with Lowe here.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Max Kepler, Alex Kirilloff
Joshua Jung
He went for a really nice .348/.436/.652 line at AAA last year (156 PA). For the year, between AA and AAA he hit 19 homers in 432 PA (19 PA/HR), and he did that while striking out at just a 22% clip. That’s pretty impressive power with the contact ability. He has just four career steals in the minors, so the best-case scenario seems to be a power source with decent batting average.
The projection systems don’t really believe that Josh Jung will be on the team Opening Day, but there is plenty of time left for that change (the max projection for his PAs is coming from ZiPS at 491, with totals as low as 386 (THE BAT).
So you’d be taking a double-risk here. With that being
He gets enough Major League PAs to matter
His minor league stats would have to stick in the MLB enough to help a fantasy team
Here is an opportunity for me to employ the Bayes rule of conditional probability! For Jung to be a successful fantasy pick for your fantasy team, the two things above both have to happen. I’ll be pretty gracious here and give him a 75% chance to get 500 PA, and a 50% chance to perform well enough in the Majors to matter for fantasy once he gets there.
To find the probability of both happening, we multiple those odds together:
This is very rudimentary, but it’s a good way to view things like this. I surely don’t have these individual probabilities exactly right, and the first one could go towards 90% quite quickly if the Rangers were to say he’s making the Majors right away. But you see the risk in numerical terms here, when you’re depending on two different uncertain events to happen, your chances of hitting on both comes in lower than you’d probably guess.
I think it’s profitable (in redraft leagues, at least) to just not take these risks, that seems to result in a positive expectation over time. But in those crazy deep draft-and-hold leagues, sure - draft him really late and maybe you’ll have yourself a solid starter for the second half of the season.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Ramon Laureano, Gavin Lux, LaMonte Wade
Isiah Kiner-Falefa
He would be the one that Jung takes playing time from at third base. That makes him quite tough to draft since there’s a quite good chance he’s a bench player before long. Then you add to the fact that he’s pretty much just a steals guy anyways (20 steals, 8 homers, .271 average, .295 OBP in 677 PA last year). That makes the upside almost non-existent.
Best case scenario is another 20 steal season with only a little bit of batting average to add for your fantasy team. And a very reasonable worst-case scenario is that he doesn’t play. Of course, that is the worst-case scenario for every player, but Kiner-Falefa has to do more than stave off injury to avoid it.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Victor Robles
Pitchers to Rank
Joe Barlow
Jon Gray
Dane Dunning
Joe Barlow
The Rangers could be a competitive team, but this is far from a safe closer situation. Barlow threw just 29 big league innings last year but did post a nice 1.55 ERA and 0.83 WHIP. The 24%-11% K-BB is pretty concerning though, or at least it makes you doubt that he’s a dominant reliever.
So back to our Bayes rule. For Barlow to be a successful pick he has
Be the closer
Pitch well enough to stay the closer
Now this is true for pretty much every closer after the top ten or so, so this isn’t a guy to absolutely avoid since you need saves and there is such a limited supply. But I’d value him definitely in the bottom third of the league’s potential closers.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Dylan Floro, Rowan Wick
Jon Gray
I wrote this in the fall after the signing, so my thoughts are there. Basically this guy has been a Coors Field enigma, pitching slightly better at home over the last several years compared to on the road, but he’s been mediocre at best overall.
I don’t think it’s very useful to even look at stats for pitchers moving out of Coors, which to me gives him a super-wide range of potential outcomes. You could definitely see him putting up a really nice 180 IP season with a 3.75-4.25 ERA and a 1.15-1.25 WHIP, which would be a good fantasy pitcher. You could also see him being waiver wire fodder. So I don’t know, best of luck to you deciding for yourself, assfaces!
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Cal Quantrill, Bailey Ober
Dane Dunning
He was good for stretches last year, but ended the season with a poor line.
22% K%, an 8% BB%, a 4.51 ERA, 1.44 WHIP
That WHIP should improve just because it doesn’t really mesh with a decent walk rate, and he kept the ball in the yard (0.99 HR/9). The GB% is good at 54%, and the arsenal is deep:
He’s a young pitcher that the Rangers seem to believe in. I say that because they traded for him and were really careful with him last year in his innings counts (he was basically a pseudo-opener for them). He would have to be freed from that to make for an interesting fantasy pitcher, but you would imagine the reins would be loosened in his second year there.
His sinker put up a nice 32% CSW%, but a somewhat low 54% GB% for a sinker, and since that’s his main pitch there just aren’t going to be strikeouts coming unless he re-tools a bit. I think you’re safe for now fading Dunning - but there is more upside than we probably want to admit.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Casey Mize, Jose Urquidy