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The best 2022 fantasy baseball team is a misnomer. Thankfully, none of us know what misnomer means. Sounds to me like someone tentatively wants to date the Travelocity Gnome’s daughter, “Miss Gnome, er, you wanna grab some boba and chill?” Miss Gnome brushes back her hair and bats her eyelashes that are almost as long as her two-and-half foot body, “I’d love to,” but her voice is high-pitched, which is a turnoff, so you cancel plans with her repeatedly until she gets the hint. Sorry, Miss Gnome, I like my women’s voices low like their stature. Any hoo! So the title is a bit of a superlative. What was I gonna say, “The Mostly Kinda Good Fantasy Baseball Team?” You’ll get over your scoffing; I have faith in you. This is the best 2022 fantasy baseball team that I can put together when drafting from my top 100 for 2022 fantasy baseball and top 500 for 2022 fantasy baseball. Honestly, I could draft another 25 teams from those lists, and they’d all be different, but equally terrific… Well, one of the twenty-five would only be sorta terrific, but it would be really hard to tell which one that is. If I took Adalberto Mondesi in the 4th round, everything after would change. If I took Trea Turner in the 1st round, everything after would change. I’ve previously gone over my 2022 fantasy baseball draft prep for the first few rounds and pitchers pairings. For this exercise, I’m taking Ronald Acuña Jr. in the first, because, well, people complained previously I always did this post by taking the first pick, so I’m switching it up, like when you combover your hair right instead of left. My “Best Fantasy Baseball Team” from last year is hilariously awful, and I’ll show you that team later in this post. Oh, it’s so so so so so so bad. I mean, it puts everything in question. Like, was I dropped on my head last preseason?
As for this year’s best fantasy baseball team, until pick 100, I’m taking one guy somewhere in every fifteen picks. It would be nice if I was in a league where someone drafted Gerrit Cole and deGrom in the first round and I was able to take Shohei Ohtani in the 2nd round (which is likely in some leagues), but since Acuña and him are in my first 12 picks, according to the rules I’ve set up for myself, I can’t take them both. Then, as we all know, once you get into the 100s, there’s wide gaps between ADP and where players are actually taken. People tend to look at team need over value. So for this exercise, once I get to pick #101, I’m going to pick two players every twenty picks. Finally, because there is so much latitude in the latter rounds, I gave myself free rein to fill up my team after pick 200. Throughout the draft, I also gave myself the ability to reach to a lower draft pick, but not reach forward. Or reach around, if you’re feeling frisky. It should still be my ideal team…or not. Let’s see, shall we? Bee tee dubya, this team is a 12-team, 5×5, one catcher, 5 OFs, MI, CI, 1 UT, 9 P, 3 bench, just like the Razzball Commenter Leagues (go sign up, you Big Chungus). Anyway, here’s the best 2022 fantasy baseball team:
C: Sean Murphy (22)
1B: Pete Alonso (3)
2B: Ketel Marte (5)
SS: Wander Franco (2)
3B: Luis Urias (14)
MI: Gleyber Torres (15)
CI: Eduardo Escobar (16)
OF: Ronald Acuña Jr. (1)
OF: Jared Walsh (6)
OF: Jarred Kelenic (8)
OF: Trent Grisham (11)
OF: Austin Hays (21)
UTIL: Jeremy Pena (19)
P: Freddy Peralta (4)
P: Shane McClanahan (7)
P: Ryan Pressly (9)
P: Framber Valdez (10)
P: Scott Barlow (12)
P: Ranger Suarez (13)
P: Noah Syndergaard (17)
P: Jake McGee (18)
P: Aaron Civale (20)
Bench: Pierce Johnson (23), Joe Barlow (24), Tyler Wells (25)
SO, THIS TEAM IS BETTER THAN LICORICE PIZZA, THE MOVIE, NOT THE CAFETERIA FOOD, BUT IS THERE ANY CHANCE YOU CAN DRAFT THIS EXACT TEAM?
No. Sorry, I don’t mean to be short with you like Jose Altuve. Here, let me explain it to you with a long-form answer: Noooooooooooo. As I said in the opening, this is an exercise to give you an idea of a team I wouldn’t kick out of bed. With this exercise, I don’t look at ADP, so it’s nice that I think I can draft all of these guys where I have them ranked, but invariably some buster enters the draft room, takes, say, Shane McClanahan before I can and this team is impossible to replicate. Out of 1,000 drafts, maybe you could draft this team once, and, if you’re drafting 1,000 times, make sure to take some Vitamin D, because you’re severely lacking in exposure to the sun. For every pick that might not be there for me to take, there’s other guys like Sean Manaea, who you could wait on a little longer on and get instead of McClanahan. So, Grey’s rankings Gwyneth and they taketh away her acting career after the age of 40. Because I just have to share with you this little tidbit — a tiddiebittie? — my “best” team post last year was so comically awful. Here’s my team I wrote up in this post last year:
C: Austin Nola (22)
1B: Cody Bellinger (1)
2B: Ketel Marte (4)
SS: Adalberto Mondesi (2)
3B: Austin Riley (12)
MI: Scott Kingery (20)
CI: Jared Walsh (11)
OF: Marcell Ozuna (3)
OF: Lourdes Gurriel Jr. (6)
OF: Wil Myers (8)
OF: J.D. Davis (13)
OF: Garrett Hampson (17)
UTIL: Jarred Kelenic (21)
P: Blake Snell (5)
P: Framber Valdez (7)
P: Kevin Gausman (9)
P: Nick Anderson (10)
P: Rafael Montero (14)
P: Zach Eflin (15)
P: Marcus Stroman (16)
P: Amir Garrett (18)
P: Nate Pearson (19)
Bench: Anthony Bass (23), Taylor Rogers (24), Diego Castillo (25)
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Go ahead, laugh it up.
IS THIS SERIOUS?!
It is.
OH MY GOD, YOU’RE SUCH A GIANT DUMMY.
So, the hitting is a bit of a mess.
A MESS?! CODY BELLINGER, MONDESI, OZUNA AND MARTE WERE YOUR FIRST FOUR PICKS. I AM A SKULL EMOJI BEING BURIED BY LAUGHTER.
The pitching wasn’t much better, tee bee aitch. The biggest takeaway for me is–
IGNORE EVERYTHING YOU SAY?!
Tough, but fair. Biggest takeaway is shizz happens. There was no one last year at this time that thought I put together the worst team ever. Coin flips go the wrong way some times, and a lot of these are coin flips. Draft Acuña this year or Kyle Tucker? Coin flip, and hopefully I grabbed the right one. Then if you take Tucker, that changes everything after that pick. But, woof, that “best fantasy baseball team” from last year is humbling. I didn’t even draft a decent bullpen.
YOUR ACE WAS BLAKE SNELL! THIS WILL NEVER GET OLD.
Okay, moving on. Doing this exercise–
DON’T YOU MEAN, EXCREMENTS?
Ignoring you now, Mr. Al Capps.
LIKE WE SHOULD’VE IGNORED YOU! GREY, SERIOUSLY, YOUR MUSTACHE IS YOGA PANTS ON THAT HOT MOM PICKING UP MY FRIEND FROM DETENTION BUT YOU ARE A BIG OL’ IDIOT.
While doing this exercise, I went through my top 500 first, then went back and entered my team into the War Room, and discovered this is a team I apparently like more than the War Room:
LOOKS ALMOST AS GOOD AS LAST YEAR’S BEST FANTASY BASEBALL TEAM!
In fairness to my team, I like a bunch of the guys I “drafted” more than Rudy’s projections do, which is a concern, because I do trust Rudy’s projections. Anyone who has played around with the War Room knows, there’s a few guys who are negatives, and they bring down your overall totals. Also, anyone who’s played in a Razzball Commenter League knows players are fluid. I like Jeremy Pena a lot if the Astros don’t re-sign Correa, but, even if they don’t, Pena might not make it to Opening Day on my team, and he’s a -7.6 on the War Room, so just removing Pena and you see how the totals change:
Suddenly, my runs and RBIs appear better, and that was just by removing my Utility guy, who will never stay on my team for longer than a week. Add in someone else instead of Pena, like, say, Michael Brantley, who I would never draft, but for this exercise he’d make my War Room totals appear better:
You see how the average jumps up now. I could do the same with my pitching, if I wanted. But, in reality, with the Razzball Commenter Leagues, you’re constantly moving guys on and off your team, as soon as someone breaks out on waivers. So, the War Room totals look janky, but the team, to my eyes, looks like the Best Fantasy Baseball Team–
YES, JUST LIKE LAST YEAR’S! BY THE WAY, I’M STILL LAUGHING AT YOU.
For s’s and g’s, go to my top 500 and put your best fantasy baseball team into the comments below, using the rules I set out in the opening — one player every 15 picks until 100, then two every twenty picks, then anyone after 200 overall.
