2022 Fantasy Baseball Insertion Ranking - Boston Red Sox
Making my 2022 fantasy baseball rankings one team a time.
Explanation & Other Team Links Here
Hitters to Rank
Rafael Devers
Xander Bogaerts
J.D. Martinez
Alex Verdugo
Bobby Dalbec
Christian Vazquez
Enrique Hernandez
Jarren Duran
Rafael Devers
After an underwhelming 2020 stint, Devers bounced right back to his elite fantasy self with 38 homers, 101 runs, 113 RBI, five steals, and a .279 batting average in 2022. He limited the strikeout (21.5%) and posted a good walk rate (9.3%).
The real draw here is the power, which is enormous. He went for a 15% barrel rate and a max velo of 114.4. His 90th percentile mark was 105.6, one of the best in the league. He also kept the ball off the ground (42% GB%) to a good extent.
There isn’t much sense in writing more words here, Devers is an elite source of runs, homers, and RBI - while being better than average in batting average and chipping in a handful of steals (if he was projecting for ten more steals he would be right in the top 5 or so hitters, but he falls a bit shy in that regard).
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Mike Trout, Manny Machado
Xander Bogaerts
Bogaerts was more of a “very good” fantasy hitter in 2021 rather than his former top-20 self. He went for 90 runs, 23 homers, 79 RBI, five steals, and a .295 batting average.
He seems to be one of the beneficiaries of the juiced ball era, which has probably(?) come to an end. For his first three years in the bigs he was not much of a power hitter.
He hit just 38 homers from 2015-2017, and then belted 56 in the following two years. With the adjusted baseball in 2021, he went back to a pace in the mid-twenties, which leaves him pretty short of a lot of the names that are being drafted around him.
His exit velocity stuff is pretty good (113.6 max, 103.8 90th percentile), so he’s not going to come up shy of 20 homers in a full healthy season, but I do think 25 is more likely than 30.
The other bad news is that he hasn’t stolen double-digit bases in four seasons now (although it looks like he easily would have in 2020 if it weren’t a short season). A season of 23 homers and five steals is pretty rough for a hitter being drafted in the first few rounds, but he does give you a little bit of everything and hits for a really good batting average.
I think he’ll probably be over-drafted a bit as people hope for him to get back to his 30+ homer ways, and I don’t know if that will happen.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Francisco Lindor, Wander Franco
J.D. Martinez
He was another victim of the 2020 season (hE cOULdn’T uSe ThE IpAd IN thE duGOuT aND tHat CrushEd hiS proDUctIon!!!!!), but he bounced back quite well in 2021.
He went for 28 homers, 92 runs, 99 RBI, and a .286 batting average. He swung a bit more last year, which lowered the walk rate to 8.7%, but the K% stayed at 24% where he’s been most of his career. Teh contact rate stayed right on pace as well, and he kept getting tons and tons of batted balls into the air (34% GB% - one of the best marks you’ll find, and that number proves to be pretty steady year to year).
His barrel rate stayed high at 12.5%, and the 90th percentile velo mark was great at 104.2. So the power production checks out. The thing keeping him a bit down in ADP is the age, but he’s not anywhere near the Justin Turner / Nelson Cruz class at age 34. Last season should give us a lot of confidence that he’ll continue to be who we’ve known him to be: a super source of homers and RBIs with a good batting average, but of course, we don’t have any steals here.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Eloy Jimenez, Jesse Winker
Alex Verdugo
He is kind of a rich man’s David Fletcher. He won’t hit you 20 homers, but he’ll hit you a dozen. He won’t steal you 15 bags, but he might steal you 10. And he should hit for a very good batting average with his great contact ability (84% contact, 16% K% last year).
The key here is that he should continue to hit near the top of the batting order (he hit in the two-hole for most of last year, and now they’ve lost Schwarber & Renfroe).
You draft Verdugo for runs and batting average, but you get the benefit of him not completely killing you in homers or steals either.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Jake Cronenworth, D.J. LeMahieu
Enrique Hernandez
He racked up quite a few runs (84) as he led off 118 times for a very good offense, and he cracked 20 homers to boot. The 8.4% barrel rate supports around a 20 homer season, but he comes up short in exit velo metrics.
He would seem to be one of these “streaky” hitters, but the problem with that is that “streaky hitters” don’t actually exist.
He hit six homers in July with a .568 slugging, leaving just 13 for the rest of his season. Should you care about that? I don’t think so!
If he is the lead-off guy, you have quite a good fantasy player. He makes a lot of contact (19% K%, 78% contact), so you can have a good batting average to go with the runs, and he won’t be a huge negative in homers. It would be much nicer if he stole some bases (he’s stolen just five in the last three seasons), so that holds him down in the ranks - but he’s a nice late option if you’re hurting in the middle infield (he’s 2B/OF - which is nice).
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Trent Grisham,
Christian Vazquez
A lesson in catchers here. In 2019, Vazquez hit 23 homers with a .276/.320/.477 slash line with 72 RBI, and that took his fantasy stock a whole new level. He was in the second or third tier of catchers for the 2020 season.
It turns out that he’s not that kinda guy. In 2021 (498 PA), he hit just six homers and drove in 49 runs. His barrel rate was just 2.6%. He’s not a power hitter. The good news is that he is a good contact hitter (84%), which gives you a guy that can keep you afloat in batting average from the catcher position - which isn’t easy to find.
He’s a liability in dingers though, so you’re going to have pick your poison here depending on how the rest of your team is looking. Given the Red Sox lost Schwarber and Renfroe like we noted, he could end up as a #6 hitter which would bring the RBI up, but we’ll have to wait and see what they do with the lineup - I’d imagine he still falls into the #8 spot.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Omar Narvaez
Bobby Dalbec
Few hitters have as much raw power as Bobby D. He went for 25 bombs in 453 PA (18.1 PA/HR) with an elite 20.2% barrel rate. That number is helped a ton by the high strikeout rate (34%), this is because barrel rate only looks at balls in play. If you strike out, it doesn’t affect your barrel rate.
But when we look at barrels divided by swings, he shows up quite high on that list as well at 15th best with a mark of 5.7%. His max velo was huge at 115.6, and just looking at the guy you know that the homers aren’t going away.
The best part of the profile is the gains he made in K% as the season progressed and as he became an everyday player.
From August 1st on, he posted a 28.8% K% with a 25.5% barrel rate. You can absolutely handle a 28% K% with that kind of barrel rate. But we’re talking about two months here, so we shouldn’t just accept that he’s suddenly a 28% guy rather than the 35% guy he was prior to that. A 30%+ K% is tough to take in fantasy. It’s very tough to hit above .250 with that kind of average, and it will also lead to weeks where he does absolutely nothing for your fantasy team (can’t drive in runs if you aren’t putting balls in play).
He also did a disproportionate amount of his damage against left-handed pitchers, hitting 11 of his 25 homers against those pitchers despite facing them much less often (189 PA vs. LHP, 263 vs RHP). He struck 35% of the time against righties and 34% against lefties, so there’s no real difference in that regard.
There’s no help in OBP leagues as he walked just 6% of the time.
You’re probably going to take a big-time spanking in AVG by drafting Dalbec, and five steals would be a good outcome for him - so this is a Miguel Sano-type draft pick. The reason to take him above Sano is the youth, which gives him room to improve on K% and become a truly elite fantasy player, but it’s not super likely to happen this year.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Oneil Cruz, Adam Duvall
Pitchers to Rank
Chris Sale
Nathan Eovaldi
Tanner Houck
Garrett Whitlock
Matt Barnes
Chris Sale
Came back for 42.2 innings and was fine with a 3.16 ERA but a bad 1.34 WHIP. He had a 28% K% in that time with a 6.6% BB%, so those are good numbers.
His fastball averaged just 93.6 miles per hour, which is about where it was at in 2019 but down from his best years where he’d average above 95 with it. It still put upa really strong 12.6% SwStr%, and his slider was also effective with a 34.5% CSW% and a 14.2% SwStr%
The risk here is clear, it’s all about health. The last time he reached even 160 innings was 2017, making it hard to believe he can do it this year. It was good to see him get back last year and still have the strikeout stuff, so I’d be pretty interested in him this year if he falls far down draft boards. I don’t have many concerns about the performance when he’s ont he field, which isn’t something you can say for many pitchers.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Shane McClanahan
Nathan Eovaldi
He was one of the surprises of 2021, going for a 3.75 ERA, a 1.19 WHIP, and a great 25.5% K%-4.6% BB% combo. Few pitchers can keep the walk rate below 5% over a full season, and Eovaldi did that in 182 innings.
The strikeouts were better than what we had seen from him in his career, but still shy of greatness. He still has the big fastball:
And the curveball was great with a 40% CSW% and 16% SwStr%. He also kept the ball on the ground at a pretty decent rate, and limited hard contact with all of his pitches.
He’s seemingly a “safe” pitcher without a ton of upside, but he will be 32 this year.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Chris Bassitt, Tony Gonsolin
Tanner Houck
Houck is a potential super breakout this year. He showed off some really nice stuff last year with a 30.5% CSW% and 13.5% SwStr%. That translated to a 30.6% K% and a 7% BB%. Add on the 49% GB% and you have a guy that is really checking the boxes.
He threw just 69 innings though, so it’s not the most convincing sample. He was also handled very carefully, not pitching six innings a single time and only getting to five on five occasions.
The stuff is very good:
It’s a limited arsenal, but the four-seam and slider combo is great and it’s always exciting to see a fastball variation there as well with the sinker.
He’s just 25, so I really love the upside here. The question is just how the Red Sox will use him. You would have to think they’d let him get deeper into games this year just because they don’t have a ton of good SP options, but we’ll have to wait and see for sure on that. Either way, he should provide a really nice ERA and WHIP with a strong strikeout rate (maybe won’t get you there in total strikeouts if he only throws 120 innings, but there’s upside there).
You can do a whole lot worse late in the draft.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Blake Snell, Triston McKenzie
Garrett Whitlock / Matt Barnes
Closer by committee here, but the Red Sox should be a competitive team. Will need to re-shuffle these guys once we have a better feel for the situation there.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Ken Giles