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 WEST
| AL WEST | HIT | MISS | AL WEST | HIT | MISS | |
| Houston | Kyle Tucker | Yuli Gurriel | Houston | Cristian Javier | Lance McCullers | |
| Seattle | Julio Rodriguez | Jesse Winker | Seattle | George Kirby | Matt Brash | |
| LA Angels | Taylor Ward | Jo Adell | LA Angels | Reid Detmers | Michael Lorenzen | |
| Texas | Nathaniel Lowe | Kole Calhoun | Texas | Martin Perez | Dane Dunning | |
| Oakland | Seth Brown | Kevin Smith | Oakland | Cole Irvin | A.J. Puk |
HIT
Kyle Tucker went 30/14 last year and this year he upped that to 30/25. Drove in 107 runs too which helps to wipe out some of the stink of that .257 average and 71 runs scored total.
Julio Rodriguez was luminous as a rookie going .284-28-75-84-25. After a rough couple weeks to start the season, he was… fantastic.
Taylor Ward was spectacular in April and dominant in September. He was terrible in the middle. Going .281-23-65-72-5 is a strong season given expectations. Preseason expectations. I know some folks are going to be terribly disappointed in the final numbers after he posted a 1.284 OPS in April.
Nathaniel Lowe – not the Lowe anyone was really talking about in the preseason – had a dominant effort compared to Brandon. Nathaniel had a breakout season for the Rangers going .302-27-76-74 with a .851 OPS.
Seth Brown went deep 25 times and stole 11 bases. Look, the A’s weren’t very good, and they traded all their good pieces, so we are left with this dual position eligible fella who went .230-25-73-55-11.
Cristian Javier was a starter who was going to relieve this season when the Astros’ rotation got healthy. He was so dominant he made 25 starts and only five relief outings as he responded with a crazy dominant effort of a 2.54 ERA, 0.95 WHIP and a 33.2 K-rate. That led to 194 punchouts in a mere 148.2 innings. Hell of a season.
George Kirby went 8-5 and walks 22 batters over 25 starts. His rookie season was tremendous as he clearly never beat himself on his way to a punchout an inning (9.2 K/9) with a 1.21 WHIP and 3.39 ERA. His first season really couldn’t have gone much better.
Reid Detmers had a couple of great outings, a couple of rough one, but overall he was darn solid as he was pretty nails after returning from the minors with his strikeout ball. He made 25 starts going 7-6 with a 3.77 ERA and 1.21 WHIP. Also had 122 punchouts in 129 innings for the Angels.
Martin Perez was THE out of nowhere player of the year. This guy wasn’t even being drafted in AL-only leagues. Somehow, he had his best season, in his 12th year in the bigs, after posting a 5.15 ERA and 1.54 the previous four years. He went 12-8 with a 2.89 ERA and a1.26 WHIP over 196.1 innings. This one was crazy, sexy, wild.
Cole Irvin was rolling along until he allowed 11 runs his last 14.2 innings which pushed his ERA up to 3.98. He only walked 36 fellas over 30 starts as he lasted 181 innings to lead the Athletics. Posted a 1.16 WHIP doing a passable replacement job for Chris Bassitt.
MISS
Yuli Gurriel was one the more fortunate hitters in baseball last season when he went .319-15-81-83 in of the better corner infield seasons in deep mixed leagues. This year? Not even close to the same fella. He had 21 fewer plate appearance, and was awful going .242-8-53-53. He stole a career best eight bases but that was of little comfort.
Jesse Winker was – flat out awful this season. No way around that fact. He was horrid on his way to a .219/.344/.344 slash line for a .688 OPS. He did that despite a career best walk rate of 15.4 percent. Note that he had never posted a mark lower than .830 before and last season was a HOF worthy number of .949. Just ugh.
Jo Adell was, if you remember, at one point one of the rising stars in the sport. He didn’t run the bases well. He played often horrible defense. His bat? He posted a .637 OPS which leaves him at .616 over 161 big league games. He’s only 23, but he’s been so bad.
Kole Calhoun went .196-13-49 over 125 games. Look, no one was expecting much, but after going .230-21-57 over 410 PAs the last two years, his .195-12-49 effort in 424 PAs wasn’t good. Had to choose someone from the Rangers, so Kole gets the unfair hit cause no one was “in” on him.
Kevin Smith was more of a keeper/dynasty league guy this season, but he was so awful that he had only 151 plate appearances in the bigs going .180-2-13-9-4, from a guy who had 15/15 aspirations. Had a mere .776 OPS at Triple-A.
Lance McCullers posted some solid numbers: 2.27 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, 25.6 K-rate. However, it took him f o r e v e r to return to the Astros as he made only eight starts.
Matt Brash looked dynamic in camp with his sick combo fastball/slider/curveball trio pitches. He started out in the Mariners rotation, made five starts, and was abysmal (7.65 ERA, 2.05 WHIP, 1.12 K/BB ratio). Found his footing later in the pen for what that is worth.
Michael Lorenzen was effective, but he only made 18 starts, didn’t reach 100-innings and had a mere 21 percent K-rate. Not awful, the 1.28 WHIP was passable, but not enough innings or punchouts.
Dane Dunning was rolling for a while, but he ended up failing to a 4.46 ERA and 1.43 WHIP over 29 outings. He also lost two percent in the K-rate from last season, saw his walk rate go up, and ended up with a 2.21 K/BB ratio. Wasn’t even league average.
A.J. Puk pitched well with a 1.15 WHIP and 3.12 ERA with a 10.3 K/9 rate over his 62 outings, but tis this all we got? The former elite left-handed prospect had more blown saves (five) than saves (four).
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