Ray’s Ramblings: 2022 AL East 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 EAST

AL EAST	HIT	MISS		AL EAST	HIT	MISS
NY Yankees	Aaron Judge	Josh Donaldson		NY Yankees	Nestor Cortes	Aroldis Chapman
Toronto	Alejandro Kirk	Lourdes Gurriel		Toronto	Ross Stripling	Jose Berrios
Tampa Bay	Randy Arozarena	Josh Lowe		Tampa Bay	Jeffrey Springs	J.P. Feyereisen
Baltimore	Jorge Mateo	Austin Hays		Baltimore	Felix Bautista	Kyle Bradish
Boston	Xander Bogaerts	JD Martinez		Boston	Michael Wacha	Tanner Houck

HIT

Aaron Judge nearly won the Triple-Crown and is the people’s choice for the MVP after a massive .311-62-131-133-16 season with a 1.111 OPS.

Alejandro Kirk slowed in the second half, but .285-14-63-59 for a guy who was taken outside the top-10 at his position is a huge hit.

Randy Arozarena went 20/20 last year and went 20-30 this season with 89 RBI. Was a star in the outfield.

Jorge Mateo went from the waiver-wire to leading the AL in steals with 35. He hit .221 which stinks, that .267 OBP was horrid, but 13/35 still was a hit.

Xander Bogaerts wasn’t at his best, but while his teammates struggled around him, Xander still went .307-15-73-84-8. That was his first season in four full campaigns under 23 homers, but the Red Sox weren’t very good in 2022.

Nestor Cortes – was a guy I was wrong about. He did it all year long. Failed to qualify for the ERA title with 158.1 innings, but 12 wins, a 2.44 ERA, 0.92 WHIP and a strikeout an inning made him one of the better pickups of the year.

Ross Stripling started in the pen, but ultimately ended up making 24 starts for the Jays and his numbers were impressive: 10-4, 3.01 ERA, 1.02 WHIP with a 5.55 K/BB ratio over 134.1 innings. He hadn’t pitched remotely this well since 2018.

Jeffrey Springs was this year’s Drew Rasmussen with the Rays. A reliever coming into the year, Springs made 25 starts going 9-5 with a 2.46 ERA, 1.07 WHIP and 9.58 K/9. He and Stripling were special WW additions.

Felix Bautista was a dynamic bullpen arm for the Orioles with four victories, 13 holds and 15 saves. Also punched out 88 in 65.2 innings helping him to a 0.93 WHIP. Impressive.

Michael Wacha only made it through 23 starts, but you cannot ignore that he did go 11-2 with a 3.32 ERA and 1.12 WHIP for the Sox. It took a lot of managing, but when he was out there, he was damn good.

MISS

Josh Donaldson had the Bronx Bombers and Yankee Stadium and he still went just .222-15-62-59 despite playing 132 games as he posted his worst OPS since 2010 at .682. It was ugly.

Lourdes Gurriel hit .291, so it’s rough to list him here, but he went just 5-52-52 as he dropped 16 homers from last season.

Josh Lowe had it all laid out for him to have a solid fantasy season this year, but the Rays were the Rays and they kept mixing and matching in the outfield turning to guys you’ve never heard of over their top outfield prospect. He wasn’t good over 198 plate appearances in the Majors with a .627 OPS, but in 80 games at Triple-A he went deep 14 times with 25 steals while posting a .958 OPS.

Austin Hays hit six points lower than last year, hit six fewer homers, had 11 less RBI and seven less runs while going .250-16-60-66-2. Yeah, he even stole two fewer bases.

J.D. Martinez went .286-29-99-22 in 2021 but this season, after a strong start, his second half was a horror show leading to a fantasy line of .274-16-62-76.

Aroldis Chapman had his worst season ever with 28 walks in 36.1 innings, just nine saves, he hit the DL with a tattoo issue with his knee, and then complained about practicing late wanting assurances he would make the postseason roster before the Yanks told him to go to hell.

Jose Berrios threw 172 innings and won 12 games, but it was a horror show. He couldn’t control his heater, allowed 29 homers, posted a 5.23 ERA and 1.42 WHIP in one of the worst, full season efforts by a pitching with a track record of success in baseball.

J.P. Feyereisen is called out here because we didn’t have expectations for many Rays, but when you go out and don’t allow an earned run over 22 outings, you got expectations. He didn’t pitch another inning as he couldn’t get healthy, and that stunk.

Kyle Bradish – isn’t really fair to toss on this list – but he was the earliest of the young arms to get called up allowing him to make 23 starts. He had a nice run down the stretch, but overall, he was 4-7 with a 4.90 ERA and 1.40 WHIP.

Tanner Houck was going to breakout as a starter. Then he was going to dominate as a reliever. In the end he threw 60-innings before being shut down with injury, but five victories and eight saves were a big miss given the expectations.

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