Welcome to FTN's 2022 Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide

Welcome to FTN’s 2022 Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide!

I am beyond ecstatic to have you aboard on this journey through the early part of the fantasy baseball offseason. The goal of our Draft Guide is to whet your appetite with sharp analysis from some of the industry’s most talented writers while also peppering you with trends, tools and observations to properly set up for your auctions and drafts.

To simply throw cheat sheets and rankings out in late-December would be a disservice to you. There will be plenty of that in the weeks to come – and they’ll all be updated weekly and segmented by specific formats between January and late-March. First, we must tickle brain cells with a variety of strategic, fantasy baseball topics to bolster the underpinnings of optimal draft decision-making. Fantasy baseball is a grind. It’s complex. A marathon, not a sprint – a cliché we hear incessantly over the years, but one worth repeating. Having the opportunity to get a peek into the minds of some of the world’s most successful fantasy players is a good place to start.

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Throughout the season, we will provide everything you need. From preseason draft prep, strategy articles by game type, ADP market analysis and spring training roster analysis. During the season, our staff will keep the fresh content pumping in the form of podcasts, short-form videos, and every type of in-season management analysis you’ll need – from hitter lineup decisions to two-start pitcher recommendations and my weekly FAAB Whisperer column. Those who partake in FTN’s high-stakes package (coming soon), will have a direct line to me for any and all questions related to your specific fantasy baseball teams.

On this, the launch of our draft guide, here is the wealth of content we have to offer:

In the meanwhile, allow us to entertain and inform. We have some new staff additions in store, but as of Christmas time, the FTN Baseball team of me, Matthew Davis, Chris Meaney, Matt Kupferle and Broc Miller have you covered. All are consistent and accomplished high-stakes fantasy baseball winners who will be fully transparent in our analysis no matter what leagues we may land in against you.

Broc Miller (aka BrocNessMonster) is a successful MLB DFS and season-long guy who crushed the NFBC Best Ball Cutline last season, coming in seventh overall in a field of thousands. His NFBC Draft Champions strategy piece is part of this Draft Guide, and he will have several follow-up pieces in the coming weeks.
Matt Kupferle was instrumental in FTN’s baseball content last year, including his wonderful weekly two-start pitcher recommendations. Matt is a seasoned NFBC veteran who came in fourth overall in the Online Championship in 2020 and has several league titles. His breakdown on how to assess injuries for 2022 is a real eye-opener that I’m sure you will enjoy.
Fantasy’s busiest and most well-rounded mind is Chris Meaney. Meaney not only tirelessly covers multiple sports (MLB, NHL, NFL and more) with a variety of articles and videos every single day. But he’s a true expert in all of them – a talent that is rare in our industry these days. You’ll see Meaney in a ton of articles, videos and podcasts this season but he kicks off our baseball content with a look at MLB players who have changed teams in the offseason.
Matthew Davis (aka mattywood) is another FTN OG who was instrumental in the launch of our baseball product last year. He’s incredibly successful at the high stakes level, winning leagues in all the major overall contests (Main Event, Online Championship, Draft Champions, Auction Championship, Best Ball Cutline) and is someone I personally do my best to avoid having to compete against in NFBC leagues. Matty will once again be a key contributor to FTN’s MLB season-long product and will be our primary podcast host on shows I plan to appear on frequently. He will have his customized projections and rankings during draft season as well.

The team of guest analysts we’ve assembled is a superb bunch and I’d like to introduce them all. Before I do, wanted to thank a few of our talented behind-the-scenes folks who have made our first ever Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide come to fruition:

George Zainoun – Our master of artwork and design who created and assembled this beauty you’re about to scroll through.
Daniel Kelley – One of the best editors in fantasy sports, our lead at FTN, who happens to be a novelist with two book releases to his credit and two more scheduled for 2022.
Kevin Adams/Josh Collacchi/StefanoVaccarino – Three key parts of our dedicated management team (CEO, CCO, CMO) here at FTN Network who greenlit and worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make this happen.

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And now to our guest writers. You may have heard of them. I’ll introduce them one by one.

Paul Sporer – One of the most recognizable names in the industry, Paul Sporer barely needs any type of introduction. He’s a long-time writer, podcaster and lead editor at Fangraphs. Most recently, a crusher at the high-stakes level as he took down his 2021 Main Event league and had a sweat for the overall title for most of the season. Paul’s contribution discusses the important topic of starting pitcher innings limits in this unpredictable post-pandemic era.
Alex Chamberlain – Alex is another well-known industry guy who is arguably the sharpest data person in the business as well as one of the most humble. He selflessly shares his Similarity Scores by Pitch Comps database free of charge for the true dataheads who want to dive into a deeper layer of research. Alex utilizes his database in his contributing piece to help us identify breakout pitchers for 2022 based on pitch type comparisons.
Phil Dussault – Known as “The Robot,” Phil is coming off the greatest fantasy baseball season in history, securing a whopping $324,000 in NFBC prizes. He took down the $150,000 NFBC Main Event overall title, finished third overall there as well, came in second overall in the Online Championship and won the 30k Auction Championship as well. He won 19 of 22 NFBC leagues last season and placed (second or third) in the rest. Phil’s moves and opinions will certainly be tracked all draft and regular season, and we at FTN are honored that his first-ever piece of written fantasy content is the one in our Draft Guide.
Shelly Verougstraete – Shelly is a well-respected analyst who specializes in dynasty leagues and prospects analysis. I first met Shelly and her husband Rudy (from whom the Rzepczynski-like last name comes from) at a First Pitch Arizona event many years ago and have kept a close eye on her phenomenal analysis ever since. She is a big Boston Red Sox fan and is the dog-mom of the most popular canine in fantasy – Soto! She has written for nearly a dozen publications since the early 2010’s, is currently a manager at PitcherList and her work can be found on DynastyGuru. For the guide, she broke down the top prospects on every MLB team to watch out for during 2021.
Micah Henry – Micah has quickly become one of the most popular and revered analysts in the space due to his sharp analysis, attention to detail and famous #MicahNotes breakdowns on Twitter. He is currently working towards his BBA in finance ant Temple’s Fox School of Business and is a featured columnist at NBC SportsEdge, Fantrax and RotoRanks. For the guide, he was happy to do a deep dive on the stolen bases roto category, and his article was the first I’ve ever reviewed with no typos or edits.
Michael Simione – Known as the SPStreamer on Twitter, Michael runs SPStreamer.com and his been instrumental these last few years in starting pitcher streaming recommendations. Most notably, with his consistency, accuracy and quality of reasoning. Michael is incredibly transparent, honest and full-heartedly positive in all of his social media interactions and has become one of the leading voices in fantasy SP analysis. His unique piece for the guide runs through his thought process, tactics and evaluation techniques when researching starting pitchers in draft season.
Nicklaus Gaut – Nicklaus’ Twitter profile mentions that he’s a one-time FSWA award loser, but something tells me he will be updating his profile soon. That’s because he is one of the sharpest and most talented baseball writers I know. Though we’ve followed one another for some time without direct conversation, I was compelled to slide into his DMs last summer to comment on a phenomenal pitching piece of his I read on Fangraphs. My favorite fantasy studs are the ones who remain humble despite public recognition and success and Nicklaus fits the bill there. You can find him at Fangraphs and RotoBaller.
Nick Shlain – Nick is a longtime friend from our days together at RotoWire. He was one of the first fantasy baseball brains to be picked when The Athletic first launched and he’s someone I’ve had the pleasure of reading for the last decade, dating back to his days at Baseball Prospectus. He has been playing and mastering the AL and NL-only auction formats for as many years, crushing experts’ leagues with abandon. Hence, it was a no-brainer for Nick to kick off our Draft Guide with a glimpse into auction leagues.
Jenny Butler – Jenny is a chemist by trade but also a high-stakes NFBC afficionado, playing competitively since 2014 and live in Las Vegas in the Main Event since 2017, which is where I first had the pleasure of meeting and battling against her. She has finished in the top 50 overall of the Main Event in two of the last four years and has won in several other formats – namely the Best Ball Cutline and the Draft Champions. She cashed three of her five NFBC Best Ball squads last year, including one league where she finished ahead of both Phil Dussault and Hall of Famer KC Cha. Jenny has produced technical content in her career for a long while but her FTN Draft Guide article on Roster Construction will be her first official fantasy baseball piece.
Michael Govier – Last, but not certainly not least, Govier is a much beloved and enigmatic entertainer who burst onto our scene a few years ago. Though he started dabbling in NFBC in 2020, he is a seasoned veteran of roto, points and H2H formats, with nearly 20 years of experience. His primer on H2H and points leagues is loaded with sharp recommendations from his many years of winning. Govier hosts the wildly entertaining Pallazzo Fantasy Baseball podcast, and you can find his written content on Fantrax and RotoFanatic.

I’ve been on a bit of a roto heater myself, cashing in 64% of NFBC Main Events and OCs over the past five years (24 of 38 leagues). Thirteen of those are first-place league finishes. Though I never get allow myself to get complacent with all the amazing competition – it only fuels me to work harder. Beyond personal goals, my main goal is to help you dominate, whether you’re in my league or not. Transparency in my weekly updated preseason rankings, ADP reports and in-season FAAB columns comes first and foremost, as it should in the work of all my colleagues in this 2022 fantasy baseball season.

So, make room in your schedule to spend a couple hours digging through our first annual Draft Guide and get ready for an explosive and informative season of written, audio and visual content to help you crush your leagues. Let’s play ball!

Yours truly,

Vlad Sedler

Welcome to FTN’s 2022 Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide

Authors

Vlad Sedler

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