Monday begins the 2022 fantasy baseball rankings and I cannot wait for you to feast your eyes on these. Or eye, for our one eye-patched reader. Hey, Google analytics tells us everything. Argh, matey! Also, hello to our reader in Mauritius! The movie about your people was very interesting, though I honestly thought The Mauritanian was going to be in outer space and the title was a typo. Enough of that! So, I left myself one spot for one more fantasy baseball sleeper. After finishing my 2022 fantasy baseball rankings (which are available on Patreon already), I went back through all of the rankings for one guy who was jumping out as being way above in my rankings, and, well, there were about hundred guys. But I only left myself one spot for one player who I am clearly more jazzed about than others, according to NFBC ADP. Now, the NFBC ADP I’m looking at is very specific, because it’s 15-team, mixed, but if Adolis Garcia has an ADP of 160 there? Well, he might actually be ranked even later when Yahoo and ESPN drop theirs, which means I like him a lot more. Let’s take a journey through my mind and find out why Grey, in all his very special third person-esque glory, likes Adolis Garcia so much. So, what can we expect from Adolis Garcia for 2022 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?
This was the moment I fell in love Adolis Garcia:
Adolis Garcia is thrown out at the plate on what would have been his 1st career HR pic.twitter.com/OmtYSmU7Mn
— VHS (@VanHicklestein) April 15, 2021
As mentioned many times on our podcast this past season, I happened to be watching Adolis in that at-bat, and I immediately grabbed him in all leagues. Really watch him there. That’s easy power the opposite way. That should get you as excited about him as me. If it doesn’t, up your medication. Your heart’s missing a pitter-patter.
Maybe it’s the Rangers’ grays, but Adolis Garcia kinda reminds me of Adrian Beltre there. Adolis Garcia didn’t get that home run, that should’ve been, but he went on to hit 31 of them in 581 ABs, and 16 were straightaway or to the opposite field. He is not a guy who was hitting wall-scrappers, except for that home run that wasn’t. (By the way, pretty impressive we have instant replay and a home run call is still wrong. Not easy to pull off! Maybe our one-eyed reader works in MLB’s replay office in New York. Argh, do better!)
Now I could get wrapped up in the unable-to-answer puzzle of why Adolis Garcia isn’t garnering more interest in early drafts, but I was supposed to be resting my brain. Let’s take Daddy out of it, and look at Steamer projections for Adolis Garcia and Christian Yelich, who is being drafted way before him, 26/13/.227 in 146 games vs. 25/12/.258 in 146 games. Essentially the same minus average. So, can Adolis make up that ground in average? Yes, and probably no, but let’s take a looksie.
Adolis Garcia just hit .243 in 149 games with a .306 BABIP. Adolis hits the ball hard 45.3% of the time, same-ish as Freddie Freeman and Austin Riley (and other non-Braves), so I think his BABIP could get better, and others think it’s gonna come down. His batted ball profile (GB, FB, LD) is most similar to Mitch Haniger, who just hit 39 homers. The power should be there — Adolis just went 31/16 in the majors, and 32/14 in his final Triple-A year. Adolis strikes out a bit much, and doesn’t walk at all. The bottoming out of the average is potentially there. It’s a concern, but Adolis has way more upside than, say, Yelich. Not to mention, the Rangers’ lineup got much better this offseason.
People must be looking at Adolis Garcia as a fluke, but I’m looking at him as a late-bloomer who just happened to come up with little fanfare. Hey, it happens. Wait, are you thinking Adolis Garcia is the next coming of Kyle Lewis? Don’t put your shizz on him! That’s unfair. They’re different players, not to mention, Kyle Lewis may not have been bad last year; he was injured! Yes, I’m still holding out hope. For 2022, I’ll give Adolis Garcia projections of 81/32/92/.238/12 in 579 ABs with a chance for much more.
