2022 Fantasy Baseball Insertion Ranking - Philadelphia Phillies
Creating my 2022 fantasy baseball rankings one team at a time
Explanation & Other Team Links Here
Hitters to Rank
Bryce Harper
J.T. Realmuto
Rhys Hoskins
Jean Segura
Alec Bohm
Bryce Harper
It was one of the quieter MVP seasons I can remember. Harper went 101-35-84 with 13 steals and a .309/.429/.615 slash line. That was his second-best effort in his career (2015). The funny thing is that his other numbers don’t look all that much different from 2018-2019.
Nothing in the profile really changed drastically. The biggest things were fewer strikeouts and a much higher BABIP. I suppose Harper could flirt with .300 again if he’s really striking out at a near 20% rate, but it’s not likely to happen.
Checking the new dashboard tab on the breakdown of batted ball type, we see that Harper hit .402 on fly balls, which is just outrageous with the league average being around .260.
But we shouldn’t get hung up on the batting average, you’re drafting Harper to be an elite source of homers, RBI, and OBP while not hurting your team anywhere else. The double-digit steals are probably still a bit underrated with Harper, and it puts him firmly in the late first-round discussion.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Bo Bichette, Ronald Acuna Jr.
J.T. Realmuto
A fourth straight full season of PAs from a catcher. That alone makes him well worth a (relatively) high pick as a catcher. But it certainly helps that he once again went solid slash line of .263/.343/.439 and swiped 13 bases.
Now, that line actually looked quite a bit worse from 2018 and 2019, here’s that comparison:
So he’s been slipping in K% while losing some pop. His 8.6% barrel rate and 111.2 max velo do indeed make him look like an average source of power (which he was last year around 31 PA/HR), which should hurt his fantasy value there’s no question about it. The playing time and steals are very nice to get, but those two things are hardly a guarantee for a catcher that has put this much wear on his body over the years. I don’t think I’ll be buying on Realmuto at the price it’ll cost, but he still has to be ranked near the top.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Yasmani Grandal, Daulton Varsho
Rhys Hoskins
For some reason, I only remember Hoskins as some dude who strikes out 30% of the time and hits crazy bombs. That just proves that I’m an idiot because this guy has never had a strikeout rate above 25%. Honestly, I feel like FanGraphs is gaslighting us by changing his strikeout rates cause I swear this guy struck out like 30% of the time until last year… the hell is going on.
My dashboard, derived from baseball savant, agrees with FanGraphs for 2021, so I guess we’ll go ahead and accept the alleged truth here.
So Hoskins posted a sweet 17% barrel rate last year with an 11% walk rate and a sub-25% strikeout rate. He slashed .247/.334/.530 with 27 homers in a shortened season (16.4 PA/HR). He also stole three bases. This guy seems… quite good for fantasy. I’m really frazzled right now.
So he’s an easy 30 homer guy if healthy, with upside for 40-ish, and he’s not a complete crater to your batting average. And in OBP leagues he’s even better.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Brandon Lowe, Jose Abreu
Jean Segura
I would’ve guessed this guy is like 35, but he’s just 31 (he’ll be 32 this season…), so more proof of me not knowing anything about the Phillies. He is a super bland fantasy contributor, going just for 14 homers and nine steals last year (567 PA’s). The reason he’s still here is that non-zero supply of teals and a pretty good batting average (went .290/.348/.436 last year). He also plays the positions that are hard to fill late in the draft, but it’s pretty much just that kind of stuff keeping him afloat. I’d rather not get to the point in a draft where I need to draft Segura.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Ty France, Michael Brantley
Alec Bohm
I think the hype train has sailed (that’s not the expression…) on Bohm. He went for just seven homers in 417 PA last year (59.6 PA/HR), and he did that while not stealing bases (4) and not even hitting for a good batting average (.247). Maybe that average will come up (hit .338 in a short 2020 season), but he did strike out at a 27% rate so I think .250 sounds more correct than .330.
His velo numbers do seem a bit better than a 60 PA/HR rate. His 90th percentile velo beat the league average handily (103.7 vs. 101.8). The reason he didn’t hit many homers probably has more to do with the 53% ground-ball rate. A high GB% is much easier to fix than just not having the ability to swing the bat very hard, so maybe I shouldn’t be so harsh.
The upside, I think, is around 20 homers, a .270 batting average, and 8-12 steals. That’s not completely horrible for fantasy in the later rounds, and this guy is only 25 years old.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Amed Rosario, Andres Gimenez
Pitchers to Rank
Zack Wheeler
Aaron Nola
Ranger Suarez
Corey Knebel
Kyle Gibson
Zack Wheeler
Everything went right for Wheeler last year as he led the league in innings pitched while posting an elite 2.78 ERA and a 1.01 WHIP. His 29% K% and 5% BB% back that up just fine, and the 51% GB% puts him right in the sweet spot amongst truly elite pitchers.
Here’s the arsenal breakdown:
He worked in more four-seamers last year after being pretty sinker-heavy in 2020. That worked out quite well and that 11.5% SwStr% was one of the best marks in the league for that pitch. Somehow he avoided the barrel at the same time, which is pretty rare with a four-seamer. I think the four-seamer is certain to perform worse next year, but there’s plenty of room for that with how awesome it was last year.
The secondary pitch was the slider which had a strong 15% SwStr% in its own right and also avoided the barrel quite well. Then there are three other pitches there that were also good, giving Wheeler a dominant, deep arsenal. He’s 31 now, which isn’t really a notable age. I think Wheeler will probably be over-drafted just because it’s hard not to over-draft the pitchers that post elite lines for one year after having a career of being just decent.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Shane Bieber, Lucas Giolito
Aaron Nola
I wrote this long piece about Nola already. So I’ll just summarize my findings for the sake of time.
Nola’s ERA, as you know, was bad at 4.63. But everything else was great (1.13 WHIP, 29.8% K%, 5.2% BB%).
His ERA in conjunction with that K-BB rate makes no sense, as I showed with this scatter plot:
You just don’t often see K-BB numbers near 25% with ERA’s above 3.5, it’s very rare.
The arsenal is deep:
Strong numbers on the four-seam (besides the high barrel rate) and changeup with an elite curveball still.
Nola was very unlucky last year and I’m going to be high on him for next year.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Luis Castillo, Robbie Ray
Ranger Suarez
He went from closer to start in August, and from August 2nd on he threw 66 innings with a 1.51 ERA, a 1.08 WHIP, a 25% K%, and a 7% BB%. The ERA isn’t really believable, very few 1.51 ERA’s are, but it was a really impressive string of starts he put together.
His barrel rate allowed was south of 2%, pretty unsustainable, but he did have a 57% GB% with it which helps. I’d be a little alarmed by the 25% strikeout rate, you don’t see many dominant fantasy starters being under 25% so he’s on the cusp here.
Here’s the arsenal, again just limiting to his starts and not his bullpen work:
Not much velocity, but an arsenal that brings a ton of ground balls. The 25% K% honestly seems a little bit high seeing as he was mainly a sinkerballer guy (the 9.7% SwStr% is a great mark for the sinker, but I don’t know if he can repeat that).
I think there’s a decent floor here, it’s hard for guys with strong sinkers and changeups to get really roughed up especially when they aren’t walking hitters - but the ceiling is lacking here for sure, especially when you consider the innings questions (only 106 thrown last year).
Comps/Rank-Arounds: John Means, Aaron Civale
Corey Knebel
He’s the suspected closer right now, but the Phillies have been a team willing to split their saves up. Jose Alvarado is there, but there aren’t too many other names threatening for the job right now. That’s solid news for Knebel. He threw just 25.2 innings last year and hasn’t gone over 60 since 2017. Obviously, previous innings counts aren’t a huge concern for relievers since you’re talking about a full season being like 70 innings, but health has to be mentioned with him nonetheless.
He was good in those innings, which is the most important thing. He had a 30% K% and a 9% BB% with a 2.45 ERA and a 0.97 WHIP. The Phillies are an average team at worst, so you could see Knebel having 30 save upside. I’d just try to grab Alvarado too if you’re drafting Knebel in a deep league.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Ken Giles, Lucas Sims
Kyle Gibson
Was magnificent early in the year but tapered off quite a bit, which was pretty predictable. He finished with a 3.71 ERA, a 1.22 WHIP, a 21% K%, and an 8.5% BB%. Bad strikeout numbers lead to bad results more often than not, but Gibson is a decent innings-eater late in the draft for deep leagues. I bet a lot of people will fade him entirely in those settings given the 5.09 ERA he posted after joining the Phillies, but I’m not much the type to be picky about a couple of months of the season. I think he can throw you 170 innings with decent enough ratios to matter very late.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Casey Mize, Cal Quantrill, Marco Gonzales