Ray’s Ramblings: 2022 NL West Review

As we wrap up the 2022 fantasy baseball season, we’re gonna check in with all six divisions. We will chose 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 WEST

NL WEST	HIT	MISS		NL WEST	HIT	MISS
LA Dodgers	Will Smith	Cody Bellinger		LA Dodgers	Tony Gonsolin	Ryan Pepiot
San Diego	Ha-seong Kim	Josh Bell		San Diego	Joe Musgrove	Sean Manaea
San Francisco	Thairo Estrada	Joey Bart		San Francisco	Carlos Rodon	Alex Wood
Arizona	Christian Walker	Ketel Marte		Arizona	Merrill Kelly	Madison Bumgarner
Colorado	C.J. Cron	Connor Joe		Colorado	Daniel Bard	Austin Gomber

HIT

Will Smith basically repeated last season, and that’s a hit at the catcher’s spots as he went .260-24-87-68 with a .807 OPS.

He-seong Kim was used way more than expected, he nearly had 600 plate appearances, and he helped stabilize a team that was without Fernando Tatis all year. Had a solid enough fantasy season going .251-11-59-58-12 making him a mixed league option in deep mixed leagues.

Thairo Estrada was a homer away from a 15/20 season… out of nowhere. The Giants’ infielder went .260-14-62-71-21 making him, wait for it, a top-10 second baseman.

Christian Walker didn’t really stand out at first base, but how are you gonna look down on a good season that also happens to be a career best effort? Walker went .242-36-94-84 as the performance finally caught up with the batted ball data.

C.J. Cron didn’t stand out at first base, have you heard that before, had a flat out embarrassing .604 OPS so it is hard to call him a hit, but the Rockies really didn’t have any standouts and he had his first 100 RBI season going .257-29-102-79.

Tony Gonsolin only threw 130.1 innings, but the numbers were astounding: 16-1, 2.14 ERA, 0.87 WHIP as he basically performed like a peak Clayton Kershaw. Astounding.

Joe Musgrove only won 10 games, but he threw 181 innings with a 2.93 ERA, 1.08 WHIP and more than a punchout an inning while averaging more than six innings an outing.

Carlos Rodon will become a free agent after a supremely dominant season of 14-8, 2.88 ERA, 1.03 WHIP with an insanely impressive 33.4 K-rate for a starting pitcher.

Merrill Kelly wasn’t as good as Zac Gallen, but the cost was virtually non-existent on draft day. Tied his MLB best with 13 victories, but he posted a 3.37 ERA, 1.14 WHIP and 2.90 K/BB ratio over an impressive 200.1 innings pitched.

Daniel Bard from being a last round selection to 34 saves, a 1.79 ERA and 0.99 WHIP. How often does a 37 year old have a career best season?

MISS

Cody Bellinger went .210-19-68-70-14 that led to a .654 OPS. That’s a .611 OPS his last 239 big league games. Wow. He’s just 27 years old.

Josh Bell was outstanding with the Nationals, was dealt to the Padres, and forgot how to hit. In 53 games with the Padres, Bell went .192-3-14-26-0 with a .587 OPS. An absolutely horrid trade deadline addition.

Joey Bart was supposed to emerge with Buster Posey retiring. He went .215/.296/.364 with a 38.5 percent K-rate. He’s the new Mike Zunino.

Ketel Marte went .318.374/.543 the last three years, and this season he was at .240/.321/.407. His OPS was down .190 points. Just awful.

Connor Joe started out how and you all told me he was IT. I said he wasn’t. He wasn’t. He hit .139 in the second half and finished at .238-7-28-56-6 with a .697 OPS. Ugh.

Ryan Pepiot is a Dodger, and there really were no busts there. Was Pepiot a bust? No, he really wasn’t, but I had to name someone. He only allowed 26 hits in 36.1 innings but that 17 percent BB-rate led to a 1.46 WHIP. Bright future, just not there yet.

Sean Manaea looked sharp for a while, but then, life happened. Finished 8-9 with a 4.96 ERA, the worst numbers of his career. The 1.30 WHIP was up too as he was bombed for homers (1.65 per nine).

Alex Wood is always effective… until this season that is. He went 8-12 with a 5.10 ERA which wipes out the decent 1.24 WHIP and strikeout per inning pitched.

Madison Bumgarner made 30-starts but he went 7-15 with a 4.88 ERA and 1.44 WHIP. Working on a sad ending to a pretty amazing career.

Austin Gomber saw his ERA go up a run to 5.56 while his record went from 9-9 to 5-7. What happened to the strikeouts as the rate fell from 23.2 to 18.0 percent.

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