Ray’s Ramblings: 2022 NL 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.

NL CENTRAL

NL CENTRAL	HIT	MISS		NL CENTRAL	HIT	MISS
St. Louis	Tommy Edman	Dylan Carlson		St. Louis	Miles Mikolas	Jack Flaherty
Milwaukee	Rowdy Tellez	Christian Yelich		Milwaukee	Eric Lauer	Aaron Ashby
Chi. Cubs	Ian Happ	Seiya Suzuki		Chi. Cubs	Justin Steele	Kyle Hendricks
Pittsburgh	Oneil Cruz	Ke’Bryan Hayes		Pittsburgh	Mitch Keller	J.T. Brubaker
Cincinnati	Brandon Drury	Joey Votto		Cincinnati	Nick Lodolo	Hunter Greene

HITS

Tommy Edman stole 30 bases for a second straight season. Actually, two nearly identical season last year (.262-11-56-91-30) and this year (.265-13-57-95-32) which is pretty darn hard to do.

Rowdy Tellez wasn’t objectively great, and didn’t really stand out at first base, but he went 35-89 for basically free so we can overlook the .219 average and .767 OPS, right?

Ian Happ saw his OPS fall to .781 late which hurts, but he also hit .271 which is thirty points clear of his mark entering the season and he still posted a solid .342 OBP as he dropped that K-rate down to just 23 percent. Had his first 17-70-70 season and also stole nine bags.

Oneil Cruz has holes to his game, but oh is this game supremely fantasy friendly. He hits the ball as hard as anyone in the game, and he went deep 17 times with 11 steals in just 87 games. Massive 35 percent K-rate is a legit concern though.

Brandon Drury only played 92 games with the Reds, but they were so bad he was still their star. He went .274-20-59-62 with an .855 OPS before being dealt to SD where he had less success (.724 OPS).

Miles Mikolas threw less than 50 innings last year coming back from injury, but he went nuts this season for the Cards going for a 3.29 ERA and 1.03 WHIP over 202.1 innings in an eerily similar campaign to 2018.

Eric Lauer had a physical hiccup with his arm at one point, but he still went 158.2 innings going 11-7 with a 3.69 ERA and 1.22 WHIP. Also tossed in 157 punchouts for a complete season.

Justin Steele made 24 starts for the Cubs with more than a strikeout an inning. He didn’t go deep into game very often, he only threw 119 innings, but he still posted a 3.18 ERA though his walk rate led to a somewhat inflated 1.35 ERA.

Mitch Keller finally, we think, found his game late in the year. Overall, he dropped his ERA to 3.91 while easily throwing a career best 159 frames. Posted a 3.09 ERA in the second half with a .309 wOBA.

Nick Lodolo punched out 131 batters in 103.1 innings showing oft dominant talent. He was successful over his 19 starts with a 3.66 ERA and 1.25 WHIP. The future is very bright for the lefty.

MISS

Dylan Carlson completed his second full season – and was more disappointing than he was as a rookie as he lost thirty average points, 10 homers, 23 RBI and 23 runs to finish at .236-8-42-56. There was no growth this season whatsoever.

Christian Yelich is only 30 years old, but it is clear that the MVP level players of 2018-19 will never return. Fell one run short of 100 and one steal short of 20 going .252-14-57-99-19. It wasn’t a bad season per se, but it was still down from the expectation game.

Seiya Suzuki woefully missed the expectations that were placed upon him. He started hot, got cold, got hurt and in the end was just a guy going .262-14-46-54-9. You could have gotten Lane Thomas to do the same thing for ya this year, and he wasn’t drafted.

Ke’Bryan Hayes claimed a back issue curtailed his offense (.244-7-41 with a .659 OPS), but he still stole 20 bases. Time to face facts. The star with a bat in his hands as a rookie… that guy hasn’t been available the last two years.

Joey Votto ended the year on the IR after shoulder surgery, but was he awful (.205-11-41). Doesn’t it seem like four years ago that he went .266-36-99. That was last season by the way.

Jack Flaherty dealt with multiple injuries that limited him to a mere 36 innings. Didn’t want to add injured guys to this list, if possible, but the Cards didn’t have any true bombs on the hill so we will default to the guy who has failed to throw 80 innings in the bigs since 2019. a

Aaron Ashby struck out 126 batters over 107. Innings which is good. However, he posted a 4.44 ERA, a 1.43 WHIP and nearly four walks per nine innings. He also went just 2-10. A bright future, but he wasn’t that guy in 2022.

Kyle Hendricks made 16 starts with a 4.80 ERA and 1.29 WHIP, virtually identical numbers to 2021, though over 100 fewer innings. He was slightly worse than just a guy with the mere 19 percent K-rate.

J.T. Brubaker made 28 starts covering 144 innings for the Pirates with a 3-12 record, a 1.47 WHIP and 4.69 ERA. It’s the Pirates. That actually qualified as a decent season, but it wasn’t in the fantasy game, even with the K-per-inning.

Hunter Greene certainly finished on a high note, and he throws the ball as hard as any starter – ever. In any outing it could be six shutout innings, or five runs allowed. The 164 punchouts over 125.2 innings was outstanding, and the 1.21 WHIP showed his dominance, but a homer per outing and 1.72 homers per nine was far from ideal. Overall, it was a solid rookie season, but there was more expected in some corners than being solid.

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