Ray’s Ramblings: 2022 AL Central Review

As we wrap up the 2022 fantasy baseball season, we’re gonna check in with all six divisions. We will choose a HIT and MISS on the hitting side, and pitching side, for all the teams in each division. So, this list isn’t simply populated by guys who tore a knee or blew out an elbow, we will remove players who had a catastrophic injury (like Adalberto Mondesi or Chris Sale) from consideration.

AL CENTRAL

AL CENTRAL	HIT	MISS		AL CENTRAL	HIT	MISS
Cleveland	Andres Gimenez	Owen Miller		Cleveland	Triston McKenzie	Zach Plesac
Chi. White Sox	Eloy Jimenez	Yoan Moncada		Chi. White Sox	Johnny Cueto	Lucas Giolito
Minnesota	Luis Arraez	Jorge Polanco		Minnesota	Jhoan Duran	Dylan Bundy
Detroit	Eric Haase	Spencer Torkelson		Detroit	Gregory Soto	Eduardo Rodriguez
Kansas City	Bobby Witt Jr.	Hunter Dozier		Kansas City	Brady Singer	Brad Keller

HIT

Andres Gimenez was terribly disappointing last season, but not so much this season when he was one of the absolute best waiver-wire adds in baseball going .297-17-69-66-20. Hitting .300 and going 15/20, yeah, that’s a star in 2022 baseball.

Eloy Jimenez — feels really dirty to list. Nothing quite went right for the Sox this season, and that includes with Eloy who played just 84 games. Still, he was banging when he played, though that was a legit challenge. He posted a .858 OPS with six homers and 54 RBI so he was extremely productive, but this was also about Abreu hitting 15 homers, Robert playing 98 games, Anderson 79 etc.

Luis Arraez won the AL Batting Title hitting .316. He also hit eight homers, a career best, while scoring 88 runs. Toss in qualification at first base, second base and third base only sweetened the batting average package.

Eric Haase didn’t reach the 22 homers he hit last season, but he went deep 14 times while bumping up his average to .254 (twenty-three points better than last year). His OPS was also up three points from last season at .748. It was a rough year in Detroit.

Bobby Witt Jr. was too expensive in my opinion on draft day. I was wrong. Witte struggled at times, and only posted an OBP of .294, but he went .254-20-80-82-30 in what was a huge rookie season.

Triston McKenzie took a while, but he finally arrived in 2022. Not only did he toss a career best 191.1 innings, he posted a sub three ERA at 2.96 with 190 punchouts. Kept the walks under control all year and boom — the 0.95 WHIP was gorgeous.

Johnny Cueto signed off the street, and added off waivers in fantasy, Cueto was a stabilizing factor for the White Sox with a 3.35 ERA and 1.23 WHIP over 158.1 innings. He averaged 6.1 innings an outing which is an extremely good mark for today’s game.

Jhoan Duran throws over 100 mph. It amazes me that anyone even puts the ball in play off him. He made 57 appearances for the Twins with 18 holds eight saves, a 1.86 ERA and 0.98 WHIP. Also racked up an 11.84 K/9 and 5.56 K/BB ratio… as a rookie.

Gregory Soto saved 18 games last season and upped that mark to 30 this season. AMAZINGLY he lost 11 games which was brutal if you were in a points league.

Brady Singer had been just a guy through two years, but it all clicked this season. He was terrific with a 1.14 WHIP and 3.23 ERA over his 153.1 innings. Almost posted a K-per-inning and he went 10-5. A fantastic addition off waivers.

MISS

Owen Miller was someone you all wanted to be something this season after his strong start. You were warned, and in the end, he was worse than even I thought as he fells to .243-6-51-53 with a .652 OPS.

Yoan Moncada – what happened? He was never worse than this season when he went .212-12-51 over 104 games with a .626 OPS and two steals. He was supposed to be a superstar. He’s not even usable in mixed leagues at this point.

Jorge Polanco fell from 33-98-97 to 16-56-54. He also lost thirty-four points in batting average and eight steals (.235 and three). He went from being a borderline superstar to being waiver-wire fodder in some leagues.

Spencer Torkelson is a cannot fail prospect, but he failed in 2022. The Tigers gave him a lot of leash, he did make better contact as the year went along, but his production over 110 games was ghastly as he went .203-8-28 with a .604 OPS.

Hunter Dozier was decent the last few weeks, but the 31 year old Royal was, yet again, bad. Dozier had a .680 OPS last year and the mark was .679 again this year. He continues to block younger talent cause of his contract.

Zach Plesac broke his hand while punching the mound. When healthy, he posted a 3-12 record with a 1.32 WHIP and 2.63 K/BB ratio. The K-rate is scary poor too at 18 percent (career: 19 percent).

Lucas Giolito was one of the better righties in baseball in 2019-21. He was a foundational building block this season as a result, and he didn’t pay off that faith at all. He went 11-9 which ain’t awful, but the 4.90 ERA and 1.44 WHIP were brutal for a guy who posted a 1.08 WHIP the previous three years. Ugly.

Dylan Bundy made 29 starts with a 4.89 ERA and 1.28 with a 16 percent K-rate. Yikes. He also averaged 4.8 innings per outing.

Eduardo Rodriguez got paid in the offseason, then had a personal matter that caused him to vanish from the face of the earth (the Tigers didn’t even know where he was). In the end he made just 17 starts and threw just 91 innings with an 18 precent K-rate.

Brad Keller seems to have a stretch where he convinces many that he’s in a groove and should be started. It is fool’s gold. Over his 139.2 innings he posted a mere 102 punchouts, a 5.09 ERA, a 1.50 WHIP and 6-14 record. #Fail

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