2022 Fantasy Baseball Insertion Ranking - Houston Astros
Creating my 2022 fantasy baseball rankings one team at a time
Explanation & Other Team Links Here
Hitters to Rank
Kyle Tucker
Yordan Alvarez
Jose Altuve
Alex Bregman
Yuli Gurriel
Michael Brantley
Kyle Tucker
He finally got a full season in the majors and went .294/.359/.557 while missing a couple of weeks here and there. His 18.9 PA/HR was very strong, and the contact was really good as well with an 82% contact rate, a 16% K%, and he brought the walks up a bit to 9.3%. He stole *only* 14 bases, which is a bit less than we were expecting he’d do in the Majors. Maybe he won’t be a 20+ steal guy, but those could come up as he gets moved up in the batting order here with the departure of Correa and the declining performance of Brantley and possibly Altuve as well. He started 96 games as a #6 or #7 hitter, which does make a difference on counting stats. You would imagine he would hit in the top five next year, and he could potentially hit lead-off or two-hole - which would be great for his runs count, which is really the only thing slightly lacking in his game right now.
It’s tough to find someone with homers, steals, and batting average all at once - and Tucker seems to bring that. It wasn’t an extraordinary amount of raw power despite the strong home run rate (11.6% Brl%, 111.1 max velo), but he did get the ball in the air a ton (33% FB%, 27% LD%), and he has been productive for his whole, albeit short, career thus far. I will be ranking him pretty aggressively.
Yordan Alvarez
After a lost 2020 season, Alvarez got back to work in 2021 hitting .277/.346/.531 with 33 homers in 598 PA (18.1 PA/HR). He walked less in 2021 as compared to 2019 (8.4% vs. 14%), but struck slightly less (24.2% vs. 25.5%). While the .877 OPS was very good, it was a far cry from the video-game-like 1.067 mark he put up in 369 PAs in 2019.
I’m not convinced Alvarez was fully healthy last year, and at the age of 24 the ceiling is still enormous for the guy. His max exit velocity of 116.4 was one of the best marks in the league. His 90th percentile exit velocity sat at 106.1, way above the league average of 101.8. His 15.9% Brl% was ridiculous, and his 6.1 swings per barrel was 10th best in the league. He should be viewed as one of the top power bats in the league, and it doesn’t come with a horrible batting average (and the on-base percentage could be quite good if he walks at a double-digit rate again, which I imagine he eventually will do again). The ADP of 35 is high but seems kinda too cheap to me for a guy that can go for 40 bombs, 110 RBI, and like a .270 batting average. Sign me up!
Jose Altuve
Altuve looked rejuvenated in 2021 after a really tough short 2020 season. He hit 31 homers on a .278/.350/.489 line while adding 117 (!) runs and 83 RBI as well as five steals. He hit 20 of those homers before the all-star break, and the high home run rate was never all that believable given a low barrel rate (6.4%) and not a ton of exit velocity (109.8 max). He put a lot of balls in the air, which helps especially in MinuteMaid Park as a right-handed pull hitter, but I don’t think 30 homers is really in the cards for him again. That hurts quite a bit when you add that he’s not a steals guy anymore and the batting average is anything but a sure thing at this point either (high fly ball rates and declining foot speed lead to lower batting average). It’s possible that he could get above the .300 mark again with a change in approach, he certainly seems to have the bat skills to make such a change if he is willing to give up his 25+ homer ways. Time will tell, but either way, I don’t think Altuve is going to be a total bummer for fantasy. The runs production should be very good again if not elite, and he makes so much contact (85% contact, 13% K% - both the best marks in several years for Altuve) that he can’t ever really go for a bad batting average over a full sample.
There just isn’t much upside here, and I would say it’s more likely we see 20 homers than 30 again, making him a bit unexciting at his price.
Alex Bregman
Where did the power go? In 2020 he posted a 30 PA/HR, and last year it got worse to 33 PA/HR. That was after a 2019 season where he hit 41 homers (16.8 PA/HR). The barrel rate was low (6.4%), and his max exit velocity was really low (107.5). He made oodles of contact at 88% with a 13% K%, but nobody drafted Bregman to be a contact guy. Even with that high contact rate he still posted just a .270 batting average (on a .286 BABIP as well). He had the lowest line-drive rate of his career (18%) which hurts the batting average quite a bit. This is to say I would expect to see a much-improved batting average if he keeps up the contact numbers.
The other thing to consider is that Bregman was not healthy last year. He made just 400 plate appearances, and in November he underwent wrist surgery. That would suggest that he suffered reduced bat speed because of a bad wrist. That’s no guarantee, but it won’t be surprising to see him come back to being a 30+ homer guy again given what we saw from him in 2018 and 2019. The expectation is that he’s ready to go for spring training, so that’s good news for him. He will definitely require some monitoring in spring to make sure the wrist is holding up, but for now, it seems like this could be a guy that could be a steal in the draft if (and only if) he gets the power numbers back (no guarantee).
The worst-case scenario would pretty much be what we saw last year, a .275 batting average with 15 homers and a good amount of RBIs in that lineup - along with a strong OBP. That’s a pretty nice floor, and the ceiling is still right where it always was, I think.
Yuli Gurriel
Man… this guy. He hit .319/.383/.462 in 2021. His previous career-best line was .298/.343/.541. He brought the walk rate up in 2021 but posted another pedestrian power season (40.3 PA/HR). His contact rate was great at 88%, and that led to a good amount of runs (83) and RBI (81). That kept him useful for fantasy, but what we’re looking at it is a 37-year-old who already has very little power and no steals. So you’re just hoping he keeps hitting 6th for the Astros and driving in runs with singles and doubles. Not sure why you’d really care to have that on your fantasy team when there are so many other options with much higher upside.
Michael Brantley
He maintained his elite contact ability in 2021 (90% contact rate), and that got him to a .311 batting average (.337 BABIP, but he’s always been well above .310 in BABIP). The power numbers fell to a career-worst (by far) with a 63.5 PA/HR and a 5.8 Brl%. That barrel rate was falling all year long, if we take out April and May it sat at just 4.8%. Max velo of 110 show a guy not swinging the bat very hard (and his max of the last five seasons is not much higher at 111.6, so there’s not really Joey Votto type upside if he changes his approach in that same way). This is a batting average specialist. He can be a plus contributor in runs if he stays in the two-hole (he hit #2 or #3 in 110 of his 118 starts last year), but if he falls down in the order he’s only going to help your team in one category, and that’s not someone to really be interested in if you’re actually trying to win your fantasy league. I think he’ll be over-priced once again.
Pitchers to Rank
Lance McCullers Jr.
Justin Verlander
Framber Valdez
Luis Garcia
Jose Urquidy
Cristian Javier
Ryan Pressly
Lance McCullers Jr.
It was a good year for McCullers with a 3.16 ERA, a 1.22 WHIP, and a 27% K% in 162.1 innings. The GB% was elite at 56%, and he dodged the home run ball better than almost anybody else to boot (0.72 HR/9). He was very efficient, however, with an 11% walk rate which is reflected in that “meh” WHIP.
He added a slider to 2021 and used it a ton, piling up an impressive 15% SwStr% and a great 34.7% CSW% with the pitch. That’s pretty impressive for a brand new pitch. He keeps the sinker on the ground (63%), which is what you want to see there. Hitters just could not barrel up any of his offerings, and they swung and missed at a high clip everything but the fastballs.
It’s a good arsenal, and the strikeouts should continue to be there. The walks are a concern, and they’ve always been high with McCullers so it’s not likely to go away - what helps is (in addition to the strikeouts) are the high ground-ball counts. It was also very good to see him log 160 innings, which should set him up to push towards 200 if he can stay healthy. I like McCullers a bunch, I think the floor is very good and there’s a massive ceiling if he can cut down on some of those walks.
Justin Verlander
223 elite innings in 2019, but that was more than two years ago now. We’ll really have to wait and see him throw some innings in Spring before getting a good feel on how to rank him, but I think it’s probably wise to be decently high on the guy right now.
Framber Valdez
The strikeouts just aren’t going to be there. After a good 70.2 innings in 2020 where he posted a 26% K%, that number came right back down to 22% (which is what we should have expected). The ground-ball rate stayed ridiculous (70%), which helped him to a very good 3.14 ERA, but the lack of strikeouts led him to a 1.25 WHIP even with the benefit of a .268 BABIP.
I’m not really a Valdez guy, but I get it. He should log a bunch of innings, win some games, and keep the ERA useable. He is likely to hurt your team in WHIP, and he will tank you strikeout rates (if your league uses that).
To be fair, there may be SOME strike-out upside if he reduces the sinker usage a bit and throws more curves and changeups, but I don’t see why he’d do that given the success he’s had. A Major League pitcher is really just concerned about limiting runs, and his ground-ball heavy ways get that done. He could beat his draft price though with a 24% or so K%, but I think there are better arms to chase.
Luis Garcia
He wasn’t supposed to be in the rotation last year, but injuries forced him in - and he pitched great. He had a 3.30 ERA with a 0.99 WHIP on a 25 K% and a 6% BB%. The 46% GB% is also pretty nice to see.
He probably ran a bit hot in preventing homers (0.54 HR/9). That coming back towards one would hurt the numbers, and it’s not like this guy had a dominant strikeout rate. The silver lining was a very, very strong SwStr% of 13.7% (top 10 in the whole league!). He added pitches and changed his approach through the year, and really showed some great stretches later in the year.
His arsenal is ridiculously deep:
I think this will get cut down substantially this year as he learns from last year about what works best and what the best approach is - but man it’s always encouraging to see a young guy with this much to work with. The 23.2% SwStr% on his cutter was the best in the entire league for cutters thrown 200+ times (crushing Max Scherzer and Corbin Burnes by seven and eight points respectively). That’s a pitch he will likely lean more on in 2022. The slider was really good as well, and then add on that he has a four-seamer and a sinker as well and you have a guy who is really, really interesting.
This could go different ways, but I think there’s a ton more upside with Garcia than he’ll be given credit for.
Jose Urquidy & Cristian Javier
Seems like it’s up in the air who will round out the Astros rotation between Urquidy and Javier (or a mystery person, who knows!). So we’ll have to re-rank these two once we get some more clarity there. If all things were equal, Javier looks like the better (for fantasy) pitchers:
Javier was definitely helped by being able to let loose in the bullpen for most of last season, but he really has always been a better strikeout pitcher than Urquidy - which is very important for fantasy. Urquidy would seem to have the edge for a spot in the rotation, and overall he’s not a very interesting arm to have on your fantasy team with a low K%.
If Javier would make the rotation, I would rank him somewhat aggressively given his nice history of K-BB ratio. He’s had major issues with the long ball so far (1.82 HR/9 in 2020, 1.42 HR/9 in 2019), and he doesn’t have a very deep arsenal - so he’s not super likely to be a great fantasy pitcher over the long haul anyways, but the upside is much higher.
I’ll rank both of these names quite low right now and move them once we know who will start the year in the rotation.
Ryan Pressly
Good team, good pitcher, good job security → sliding him in near the top.