2022 Fantasy Baseball Insertion Ranking - New York Yankees
Preparing my 2022 fantasy baseball ranks one team at a time!
Explanation & Other Team Links Here
Hitters to Rank
Aaron Judge
Giancarlo Stanton
DJ LeMahieu
Gleyber Torres
Joey Gallo
Gary Sanchez
Gio Urshela
Luke Voit
Aaron Judge
It was his second-best year in the bigs, eclipsing 600 PA for the second time and turning that into about what you would have expected. Elite 16.2 PA/HR, .287/.373/.544 slash line, 39 homers, 98 RBI, 89 R, and even six steals. He has been under 19 PA/HR every year since his short stint in 2016, so the power is never in doubt. The strikeouts came down last year (25% - best mark of his career), but so did the walks a little bit (11.8% - still a ton). Starting in 2020 he has started to swing the bat more (was around 40-42% before, the last two years he’s at 43%). Fly ball rate actually has room to grow (35.5% last year, he had eclipsed 40% three times before), meaning that he really could push towards 50 homers again if the health is there. Coming off the fully healthy year the price will be inflated, but if you aren’t worried about the injuries it’s justified - the guy is a stud fantasy hitter. The only knock might be the .332 BABIP. A .270 batting average seems more likely than .290, but this guy isn’t going to hurt you anywhere at all. Stud.
Giancarlo Stanton
A healthy year for Stanton as well (579 PA). Turned that into 35 HR (16.5 PA/HR, 122.2 max velo, 15.7% Brl%). Strikeouts were encouraging (27.2%), walks were also there (10.7% BB%). He also swung more (44%, highest mark since 2018), and he’s posted his two best contact rates over the last two seasons (70.3% and 70.5%). Won’t steal any bases and you could see that K% come up if he’s not quite healthy, I think. He’s definitely a slight step behind Judge here, but the production is going to be there while he’s on the field.
DJ LeMahieu
Disastrous 2021. Power went away (70 PA/HR, 3.7% Brl%). Guy has never had a max velo above 111, the 70 PA/HR makes more sense than the 25 and 21 he put up in 2019 and 2020, but he’ll very likely manage more than 10 homers if he plays another full year, not sure that number really makes sense for a guy that makes so much contact (13.8% K%, 87.6% contact%). He’s not going to a positive in power, and he doesn’t steal (his max SB output is six since 2016). Presumedly the Yankees continue to lead him off, which results in a ton of runs (he scored 84 even his down year last year). Had his second-lowest BABIP since 2015 (.301). I think everything is likely to come up from 2021, but he’s still pretty capped upside-wise with like a 20 HR, 7 SB max projection. The price should make a lot more sense this year, but it probably still won’t be a bargain.
Gleyber Torres
Not sure who this guy really is. Went from really elite PA/HR in 2018-2019 to quite awful the last two seasons.
It’s not like this guy was murking the ball prior to 2020 either, max velo has never come in above 111.6 (which was last year).
The FB% came down to a career-low 36.2% last year, which gives some room for improvement for sure. The 7.8% barrel rate is non-awful, and the contact stuff is good (20.2% K%, 76% contact rate). He doesn’t seem like 30-homer guy, but he did just now turn 25 years old. This isn’t a guy you should be shocked to see a breakout from, and even with the seemingly low ceiling, he contributes a little bit everywhere. Good contact, some steals, 25+ homer upside (and who knows maybe 40+ if he continues to develop), and in a great lineup that should give him plenty of RBI opportunity. I can get behind Gleyber a bit, and I wasn’t expecting that.
Joey Gallo
Season: 16.1 PA/HR, 35% K%, 18% BB%, 40% Swing%
TEX: 15.4 PA/HR, 33% K%, 19% BB%, 41% Swing%
NYY: 17.5 PA/HR, 39% K%, 16% BB%, 40% Swing%
Not much changed with the new team, although it might be notable that all six of his steals were with Texas. The raw power is still enormous but it doesn’t come with much else besides RBI. He doesn’t murder you in OBP in the same way he does in AVG, so there’s a big boost in those kinds of leagues. An all-or-nothing guy that doesn’t seem likely to change. He is just 28 years old.
Gary Sanchez
Pretty much as expected in 2021. 440 PA, 19.1 PA/HR, .204/.307/.425 line. Low BABIP (.230), but that’s been pretty normal for him since 2017. He’s not going to be near the league leaders in catcher PA’s, but at least he’ll hit you some homers while he’s in there. He did bring down the K% (28%) and bring up the walk rate (11%) to decent levels. You can do worse but it’s not exciting anymore.
Gio Urshela
Only managed 442 PA and hit at the bottom of the order. Didn’t stand out in anything (31.6 PA/HR, 25% K%, 5% BB%, 77% Contact%). He’s 30 now, will probably have some competition for reps. He’s a fine hitter when he’s in there, but probably not a guy that needs drafted in most leagues.
Luke Voit
Really depends on playing time. Rizzo is a free agent, but if the Yankees platoon Voit again he’s tough to draft. He ran so incredibly, unsustainably hot in 2020:
Really wasn’t a surprise to see him come back down to earth in 2021. The 22 PA/HR might be a little high (meaning worse than expected) given Yankees Stadium, but the 31% K% is a problem. Maybe he’ll make more contact if given regular playing time, and he’s absolutely a 30+ homer guy with 600 PA’s, but there aren’t any steals or batting average, and he’ll probably be the 6 or 7 hitter when in there, so I don’t really care too much for him. If he’s the everyday 1B come springtime we’ll have to move him up, but for now, I’m going to rank him pretty low.
Pitchers to Rank
Gerrit Cole
Aroldis Chapman
Luis Severino
Jordan Montgomery
Jameson Taillon
Gerrit Cole
Another elite year: 3.23 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, 33.5% K%, 5.6% BB%, 43% GB%
The HR rate rebounded after the short 2020 season (he went 1.73 HR/9 in 2020 and then 1.19 in 2021 - I think that 1.2 is a good expectation for 2021). GB% came up slightly (43%), as the slider, changeup, and sinker got a ton of grounders. Elite SwStr% on the four-seam and slider. The 11% SwStr% on the curveball was actually below league average for a curve (12.6%), but that’s about what he was doing with it before 2020 as well.
We have to talk about the sticky substance crackdown. That was instituted around June 20th. Let’s check the numbers on Cole before & after:
Before: 90 IP, 2.31 ERA, 0.85 WHIP, 34.7% K%, 3.6% BB%, 34 PA/HR, 44% GB%
After: 92 IP, 4.12 ERA, 1.27 WHIP, 32.4% K%, 7.5% BB%, 28 PA/HR, 42% GB%
That is pretty alarming. And his numbers from August on were very similar to the “after” there, suggesting that maybe he couldn’t quite adjust and maybe this is the new normal guy? I guess we don’t know for sure they’ll continue those measures, and I’m not going to project Cole for an ERA near 4.00, but this is reason enough to give us some pause with the first-round ADP.
Even so, the worst-case scenario seems to be a workhorse with a great strikeout rate and a very strong walk rate with a good offense behind him, so I have no qualms about him as a top-five guy, but maybe he’s not in my top three? We’ll find out!
Aroldis Chapman
I’m starting to do closers here, but I’m not excited about it. Chapman walked a ton of guys in 2021 (15.6% BB%), but keep the K% way up there (39.9%). ERA and WHIP weren’t great, but you’d think they’d improve and that isn’t as important for a reliever anyways. Locked in job security with tons of strikeouts on a good team. He’s my #1 RP for now.
Luis Severino
Came back at the end of the year for just six innings, so we don’t have much to work with here.
Fastball looked good with all 42 of em thrown. 12% SwStr% is really good for a fastball, and the velocity was at least sufficient. This is a guy we really can’t be ranking until Spring Training, but it was quite good to see him get back into the big leagues. That bodes well for his chances to have a full 2022 season, but at this point, we’d be lucky to find 150 innings from him. He’ll be cheap though, and it’s always a good idea to invest in some of this huge upside at the SP position late. Steamer is giving him the 150+ innings, but the guy hasn’t thrown a full season since 2018 (28% K%, 6% BB%, 3.39 ERA, 1.14 WHIP that year). Very risky pickings here, but again - big upside.
Jordan Montgomery
Kind of another one of those “he’s fine” guys. 3.83 ERA, 1.28 WHIP, 24.5% K%, 7.7% BB% really aren’t anything to get excited about. Here’s the “stuff”:
Really good changeup & curveball in terms of whiffs, but the fastballs are mediocre, although it is a little interesting to see he throws all three variations. That makes him a bit less predictable even though none of the three pitches are very good by the numbers. He definitely has the put-away pitches though if he can get to them. He’s definitely considerable for fantasy purposes. He should be able to push to 170 innings if he stays healthy after making 30 starts last year. Always volatile start-to-start pitching half the time at Yankees Stadium and having to depend so much on the changeup and curveball. He’s in the Tyler Mahle range, I think.
Jameson Taillon
His four-seam fastball was the best in the league in terms of SwStr% at 14.7%. That’s really incredible given how often he threw the thing:
The problem was hitters barreled it a ton when making contact, and he struggled to keep those batted balls out of the air. The velocity was low, making it a little bit strange how many whiffs it got. The bigger problem for Taillon was having no secondary option. All of the rest of the four pitches were average at best. He’s only 30 and just pitched close to a full season (144 innings), which was the most important thing for him in 2021, I imagine. I think he can improve on the 4.30 ERA and get the K% a little bit higher (23.2% last year), but this is a middling fantasy pitcher at best for right now.
Where they show up:
