2022 Fantasy Baseball Draft Prep: Jo Adell, Luke Voit highlight more cheap alternatives to high-priced stars

Finding the cheaper version of a high-priced player is one of the key ways you can get an edge in Fantasy baseball. You just need to get past the big-name label and trust that you can find similar numbers elsewhere. I wrote about five players being drafted inside of the top-60 overall and some lower-priced alternatives for Draft Day on Tuesday here, and here are five more! 

We got our first sense of what a post-Coors Arenado looks like last season, and it’s hard to complain too much about 34 homers and 105 RBI. However, it kind of feels like Arenado is riding a razor’s edge in terms of his ability to be a must-start Fantasy player, because he’s so dependent on home runs. If he keeps hitting around 35 homers a year, he’s going to drive in enough runs to be a must-start guy in any format, but there isn’t much margin for error here. In 2021, at least, he was kind of a two-category contributor, because his 81 runs and .255 average just aren’t very good.

And what makes that scary is that Arenado is no kind of stand out when it comes to his quality of contact metrics. He was in the 43rd percentile in average exit velocity and 31st in hard-hit rate, leading to just a .248 expected average and .420 expected slugging percentage. He overcomes those middling numbers by making a lot of contact, by hitting the ball in the air a lot, and by hitting the ball to the pull side when he hits it in the air. It’s a profile that helps maximize power, but it often comes at the expense of everything else, and we saw that in his first season outside of Coors and its BABIP-inflating environment. If Arenado gets on the bad side of variance with his home run numbers, there doesn’t seem to be much to fall back on. 

Donaldson, of course, has his own warts, and Arenado could very easily compile his way to a much better season than Donaldson. But Donaldson still sports high-end quality of contact metrics and I think he’s a good bet to be better than Arenado on a per-game or per-plate appearance basis. Donaldson isn’t a perfect one-for-one replacement for Arenado, but him combined with another late-round third baseman like Jeimer Candelario or Eduardo Escobar might produce very similar numbers over the course of the season. 

There aren’t many legitimate five-category contributors, but Polanco is one of them if you buy his 33-homer breakout in 2021. The underlying numbers mostly back it up – his expected average and expected slugging percentage weren’t far from what he actually managed and his 32 expected home runs are right in line with what he actually produced. If he can repeat that, he’s probably a five category contributor.

However, 2021 was an outlier for his career in terms of power production, as he had only ever had more than 20 once. Generally speaking, when you’re buying a player coming off a career year, you’re inviting regression risk onto your team. Of course, Adames is coming off his own career-best season, so you’ve also got that risk if you wait.

But I’m more convinced that Adames’ career season represents a new baseline than I am for Polanco because his was driven by a very specific change in his home environment. Adames hit .285/.366/.521 after getting to the Brewers last season with a 30-homer pace, which is very close to what he had hit away from Tropicana Field when he was with the Rays – .293/.366/.497 with 27 homers in 159 career games. He talked about how he struggled to see the ball in his former home, and that seems like a pretty good explanation, based on what we’ve seen. Adames sort of feels like a cheat code for Fantasy this season at his price, but especially in comparison to Polanco. 

I like Kelenic plenty, don’t get me wrong, and I’m not really scared off by his .181/.265/.350 line in his rookie season. He was just 21 years old and carries significant top prospect pedigree – not to mention a career .294/.370/.533 line in the minors. I think he’s going to be a very good Fantasy option for a very long time, and it’s not out of the question that he could emerge as a first-round type player before long.

But I can’t make sense of him going 100 picks earlier than Adell. Kelenic has been a little better at the major-league level, but a .615 OPS vs. a .593 mark isn’t exactly a huge difference. And, while Adell has had more struggles making contact (31.9% K rate vs. 28.1%), it’s worth noting that a lot of Adell’s playing time came in 2020, in the COVID-shortened season where he had zero minor-league games before getting called up when he was a year younger. Those were far less than ideal circumstances, and he cut his strikeout rate in his brief 2021 action, too. 

It almost feels like there is some prospect fatigue for Adell, who has been touted as a potential Fantasy contributor going back to 2019 drafts. However, he’s still only three months older than Kelenic and just hit .289/.342/.592 with a 45-homer, 15-steal pace in Triple-A last season. Maybe the gap in price represents a bit more faith in Kelenic’s job security, but in both cases, the player is expected to be in the Opening Day lineup and will play as long as they hit; if they don’t hit, it doesn’t really matter if Kelenic potentially has slightly more job security. 

I think Kelenic is defensible at his price, but if I had to pick one, Adell is just obviously the better value. I’m trying to make sure I don’t leave any drafts without Adell, even if I do take Kelenic earlier. 

Walsh followed up his excellent 32-game 2020 with a very solid 2021, hitting .277/.340/.509 with 29 homers and 98 RBI, but I have to admit, I’m surprised there isn’t more skepticism around him right now. His production was quite a bit top-heavy in 2021, as he had 20 of his homers in the first three months of the season. Plus, Walsh really struggled against lefties, hitting just .170/.208/.357 with 54 strikeouts to nine walks against them. There’s a very real chance he’s a platoon bat in the long run. 

And the underlying numbers back up the pessimistic case. He had a .257 expected batting average and .436 expected slugging percentage, with pretty middling overall quality-of-contract numbers. In fact, even in a season where Voit struggled with injuries and didn’t produce much, his underlying numbers were still more impressive; he had a .254 expected average and .500 expected slugging percentage. 

I get driving Voit’s price down due to concerns about playing time, but there’s very little doubt in my mind that he’s a better hitter than Walsh. Those concerns about playing time are predicated on the idea that the Yankees will bring in another first baseman, something they didn’t do before the lockout; even if they do bring someone in, there’s no guarantee Voit will be stuck in a part-time role because he could be traded himself. And then there’s that eternal truism when it comes to playing time concerns – life, uh, finds a way. On a team with Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge, Voit is going to get at bats, even if he isn’t an Opening Day starter. I’ll take the chance on him because unless Walsh figures out how to hit lefties, his job isn’t all that secure either.

India and Urias are way different. In India, you’ve got a just-turned-25-year-old former top prospect who was surprisingly productive at the major-league level in 2021, albeit one who sported some relatively unimpressive quality-of-contact metrics and probably benefited from a friendly home park and a bit of good luck. But Urias is way, way different; he won’t turn 25 until June. 

I don’t want to overstate the similarities here because India was better than Urias last season, but the underlying skill sets aren’t far off. India is a very patient hitter with middling raw power and contact skills who got the most out of it with a pull-heavy approach and a good home park, so much so that despite just a 21st percentile ranking in average exit velocity, his expected stats weren’t far off his real stats. But Urias had a very similar profile, with slightly better quality-of-contact metrics but worse expected stats, due at least in part to being a slower player, I’d bet. That’s part of where the comparison breaks down – India should be good for double-digit steals, while Urias probably won’t steal too many more than the five he managed last season. 

However, if the biggest difference between the two of them is maybe a 10-15 point difference in baseline batting average and maybe five to seven steals, it’s pretty hard to justify the difference in cost here.