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With the top 40 outfielders for 2022 fantasy baseball, we’ve finished all the hitter recaps. We meaning me, but I’ll include you. No, that’s not a cue to try to hold my hand. Why are you now patting my butt? Don’t muss my hair! The pitching recap will begin next. You can hardly wait. No, you! To recap, the end of the season rankings are based on our Fantasy Baseball Player Rater. I felt the easiest way to keep it objective would be to go this route. This way when I say a player finished 30th and I ranked them 23rd in the preseason, it carries more weight than Willians Astudillo. Anyway, here’s the top 40 outfielders for 2022 fantasy baseball and how they compare to where I originally ranked them:
21. Juan Soto – Recency bias is such a helluva thing that I look at Sexy Dr. Pepper now and I’m hard-pressed like a grape under Francis Ford Coppola’s foot trying to figure out how I could’ve ever ranked him so high. 2020 was a wacky year, but still: 13, 29, 27 are his last three power years. His high of 34 homers was back in 2019 when the ball was juiced, and juice ain’t Soto, and I’m left thirsty for so much more. Look at it this way: Since the ball was juiced (it was, plenty of reporting done on this), it might’ve added an extra 15 feet on his fly balls, and Sexy Dr. Pepper is more of a 380-foot fly ball guy vs. a 400-foot one. Still think he’s more of a .300 hitter than .240; he was hurt by bad luck. 30/.300/7 is solid, but top three overall? Well, he’s going to need to find those fifteen feet for an extra 15 homers. Preseason Rank #1, 2022 Projections: 106/36/112/.319/8 in 517 ABs, Final Numbers: 93/27/62/.242/6 in 524 ABs
22. Christian Yelich – He hit 14 homers and stole 19 bags! How insane was the ball juiced in 2019? He hit 44 homers and stole 30 that year! People talk about steroids like it’s not an even playing field, but no one ever says we can’t count stats from goofy years when MLB is messing with the ball. Yelich has 35 homers combined in the three years since 2019. HA! He had 46 homers combined in the three years of 2015 thru 2017. Yelich is way more a middle infielder-type than home run hitter. Also, one final point, if anyone tells you a player just needs to tweak his Launch Angle a little, point them to Yelich. All he’s had to do for three years was fix his Launch Angle, and it’s been impossible. Preseason Rank #32, 2022 Projections: 82/20/88/.267/14 in 578 ABs, Final Numbers: 99/14/57/.252/19 in 575 ABs
23. Taylor Ward – Hey, it’s Mr. April! What’s up, Mr. April? Say hello to your mother for me! Okay, that’s a bit unfair. He was good in the first two weeks of May too (9 HRs, .360-ish first 6 weeks), then good again in September/October (6 HRs, .345). June, July and August left us a bit wanting. From Taylor HAM to Taylor Wanted, if you’ve seen this man, please contact his fantasy owners. Overall, clearly a solid find since no one was drafting him anywhere. He’s gonna be crazy difficult to project and rank next year, because his stats from year to year are pattern-less like the afghan your mother made you. Preseason Unranked, Final Numbers: 73/23/65/.281/5 in 495 ABs
24. Ian Happ – If the top 20 outfielders were very predictable, and they were, the top 40 outfielders are all over the place. Guys you expected more from (Soto, Bryce); guys you didn’t know existed (Ward, Thairo) and guys you were quickly losing hope with (Happ, Verdugo, Nimmo, Blackmon). Happ, specifically, has one of the strangest career trajectories. 15 HRs one year, 25 homers another year, 17 homers another. Hits .264 one year, then .226 then .271. So he’s a 15 to 27 homer hitter and a .215 to .285 hitter. Oh…*treks through the Langtang Valley of Nepal*…kay. Preseason Rank #57, 2022 Projections: 67/27/86/.234/7 in 531 ABs, Final Numbers: 72/17/72/.271/9 in 573 ABs
25. Thairo Estrada – Already went over him at the top 20 2nd basemen for 2022 fantasy baseball.
26. Bryan Reynolds – Here’s a guy who, if I were ranking outfielders myself at the end of the year, I prolly would’ve put Reynolds above Soto. 27/7/.262 makes no sense for being this low, but it shows you how much a difference in runs and RBIs can matter. Also, Soto and Reynolds are only separated by $1.80 on the Rater, but it looks bigger because these guys are all so clustered. In fact (Grey’s got more!), less than eight dollars separates Soto at 21 and Vaughn at 40. On the top 20 outfielders, eight dollars separated Betts at 2nd and Mullins at 9th. Preseason Rank #, 2022 Projections: , Final Numbers: 74/27/62/.262/7 in 542 ABs
27. Bryce Harper – Early on he jacked up his elbow and I started telling you to sell, sell, sell, and he kept hitting for power as he DH’d, and I was made to look like a fool, so I rubbed my temples and imagined Harper getting hurt, and voila! Don’t mess with me! Have grown to appreciate Harper, and, barring injury, he feels like one of the safest 30/15 guys in the game. That’s borderline 1st round numbers. Preseason Rank #13, 2022 Projections: 97/34/102/.283/12 in 514 ABs, Final Numbers: 63/18/65/.286/11 in 370 ABs
28. Brandon Nimmo – He never had 450 ABs in any year prior, and he procured 580 this year, so, this wasn’t so much as a surprise, but a year that was always possible if he just got the at-bats. His year looks like a poor man’s Steven Kwan. Call him Steven Kwan-minus-some-speed-and-average. Hmm, that nickname might need work. Preseason Rank #98, 2022 Projections: 71/10/46/.276/5 in 403 ABs, Final Numbers: 102/16/64/.274/3 in 580 ABs
29. Jeff McNeil – Already went over him at the top 20 2nd basemen for 2022 fantasy baseball.
30. Ryan Mountcastle – Already went over him in the top 20 1st basemen for 2022 fantasy baseball.
31. Luis Arraez – Already went over him in the top 20 1st basemen for 2022 fantasy baseball.
32. Jorge Mateo – Already went over him in the top 20 shortstops for 2022 fantasy baseball.
33. Tommy Pham – This guy was a revelation in leagues that count “Smacking Fantasy League Members.” On that note, seriously think about how batshizz crazy you have to be to smack a fantasy leaguemate. I get the competition gets us all yolked up, but jokes aside, Pham is a nutcase. No wonder why he wasn’t invited back, he’s got more screws loose than me putting together an Ikea desk. Any hoo! It’s so hard to rely on counting stats for the Red Sox leadoff hitters, because no one Cora puts there really belongs there, and he either figures that out after about a month or a few years. Wait until Cora suddenly realizes that Verdugo should be the leadoff guy, after he’s been there hitting like a leadoff guy for over two years, but not hitting leadoff. Preseason Rank #74, 2022 Projections: 71/19/73/.241/17 in 512 ABs, Final Numbers: 89/17/63/.236/8 in 554 ABs
34. Hunter Renfroe – If you want reliable, it’s hard to find a guy more reliable than Renfroe. No downside, except that he also the least likely to have any upside. 30-ish homers, .245-ish average, zadna rychlost — check, check, no speed in Czech. Preseason Rank #45, 2022 Projections: 79/33/92/.249/2 in 519 ABs, Final Numbers: 62/29/72/.255/1 in 474 ABs
35. Joc Pederson – This guy was a revelation in leagues that count Getting Smacked-down. It’s appropriate that Pham is above Joc, because of Joc’s use of his IR. C’mon, man, you can’t leave guys on the IR after they’re activated. That’s gonna be a smackin’. So, Joc’s average was a solid step up from projections, but we gotta talk a little bit about how my projections weren’t that far off and my ranking was 90 vs. 35. This is slightly because I don’t put much credence into counting stats, but mostly because there’s not 90 outfielders. If I were to actually rank in the preseason how many guys are worth drafting, I’d only rank 200 or so guys total. There’s a good 300 guys who are ranked that just don’t end up that good. The Dylan Carlsons of the world. The Jesse Winkers, the Chris Taylors, the Max Keplers. So many guys. Guys who I tell you don’t draft, and some I say to draft. If you took out all the guys I told you not to draft, you might be left with 40 outfielders total. It’s not like I was telling people to draft, say, Wil Myers, but he was ranked. Preseason Rank #90, 2022 Projections: 59/21/64/.235/3 in 409 ABs, Final Numbers: 57/21/70/.274/3 in 380 ABs
36. Josh Rojas – Already went over him at the top 20 2nd basemen for 2022 fantasy baseball.
37. Alex Verdugo – As I said in the Pham blurb — no, Verdugo didn’t slap anyone — Verdugo had how many at-bats at leadoff this year? C’mon, guess! He’s a 10-homer hitter with .286/.341 career marks. Maybe not a prototypical leadoff hitter, but better than anything the Sawx had. Cora used Pham a lot, who hit .236 and Enrique Hernandez hit .222 and was injured, but saw 43 at-bats at leadoff, so how many did Verdugo see? At least 100 ABs at leadoff, right? 200? He saw one at-bat at leadoff. That’s it. One! He saw more in the 7-hole. Preseason Rank #50, 2022 Projections: 93/15/59/.298/5 in 557 ABs, Final Numbers: 75/11/74/.280/1 in 593 ABs
38. Seth Brown – Already went over him in the top 20 1st basemen for 2022 fantasy baseball.
39. Charlie Blackmon – *beard hair blowing in wind, Chazz Noir on the back of an all-white stallion, swings bat, gallops towards first* “I sure hope no one realizes I’m not a Centaur but actually a baseball player on a white horse.” That’s Charlie Blackmon. Preseason Rank #75, 2022 Projections: 74/15/79/.282/2 in 492 ABs, Final Numbers: 60/16/78/.264/4 in 530 ABs
40. Andrew Vaughn – Already went over him in the top 20 1st basemen for 2022 fantasy baseball.
