Justin Mason’s 2022 Apology Tour: Draft Champions #3

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October 19, 2022

2022 was the worst year I have ever had as a fantasy player. I played in 16 leagues and did not cash in a single one. The hard part is that I don’t even know what went wrong. I had teams I really liked coming out of the draft and some that were doing very well throughout the season. Over the next few weeks I will deep dive into each team in a series of articles to examine what went wrong and what the common threads were. This is my 2022 Apology Tour.

The seventh team I am covering in my apology tour is my last Draft Champions draft of the year. The draft was a slow draft that began on February 2, 2022. This was a 50 round draft and hold league. It is 5×5 roto with 15 teams. The league had a number of great industry and non-industry players in it and I finished 14th.

Justin Mason’s Draft Champions #3 Standings
Rank Team Overall Rank Hitting Pitching Points
1 Brave Heavy 347 54.5 57 111.5
2 Pile of Dial DC 24 668 71 39.5 110.5
3 DC17 1165 27.5 71.5 99
4 The Franchise DC1 1734 46.5 42 88.5
5 KCMoose-DC5 1624 54 34 88
6 DC-150-14 2101 30 57 87
7 The Anti-Facts Tuckers 2449 56 30.5 86.5
8 Gillis 2637 43.5 37.5 81
8 Benevides 2415 29 52 81
10 Cohen 2360 46 31.5 77.5
11 Morrison DC 3 3189 35 41.5 76.5
12 Ammirante 3715 26 40 66
13 passalacqua 3996 46 19 65
14 mcguinn 4636 15 26 41
14 MasChampions3 4627 20 21 41

 

The Draft
Once again, I had a good start to my draft with Max Scherzer, Zack Wheeler, Cedric Mullins and Edwin Diaz as my first four picks. I would have liked to get more volume from Scherzer and Wheeler, but I can’t complain with their results.

Justin Mason’s DC #3 Draft
Player Round Pick Pos
Scherzer, Max 1 13 P
Wheeler, Zack 2 18 P
Mullins, Cedric 3 43 OF
Diaz, Edwin 4 48 P
Castellanos, Nick 5 73 OF
Lowe, Brandon 6 78 2B
Bregman, Alex 7 103 3B
Grisham, Trent 8 108 OF
Walsh, Jared 9 133 1B
Mahle, Tyler 10 138 P
Torres, Gleyber 11 163 SS
Turner, Justin 12 168 CI
Suarez, Eugenio 13 193 MI
Ryu, Hyun Jin 14 198 P
Sanchez, Jesus 15 223 OF
Bauer, Trevor 16 228 P
Diaz, Elias 17 253 C
Matz, Steven 18 258 P
Sanchez, Gary 19 283 C
Marsh, Brandon 20 288 OF
Finnegan, Kyle 21 313 P
Joe, Connor 22 318 UT
Bradley, Bobby 23 343 1B
Paddack, Chris 24 348 P
Zimmer, Bradley 25 373 OF
Corbin, Patrick 26 378 P
Alfaro, Jorge 27 403 C
Gibson, Kyle 28 408 P
Wade, Tyler 29 433 3B
Pearson, Nate 30 438 P
Stratton, Chris 31 463 P
Heuer, Codi 32 468 P
Jeffers, Ryan 33 493 C
Ramirez, Harold 34 498 OF
Irvin, Cole 35 523 P
Graveman, Kendall 36 528 P
Sanmartin, Reiver 37 553 P
Chavis, Michael 38 558 2B
McKinstry, Zach 39 583 2B
Escobar, Alcides 40 588 SS
Duffey, Tyler 41 613 P
Brosseau, Mike 42 618 2B
Espino, Paolo 43 643 P
Heyward, Jason 44 648 OF
White, Evan 45 673 1B
Chafin, Andrew 46 678 P
McGuire, Reese 47 703 C
Mercedes, Yermin 48 708 UT
Friedl, TJ 49 733 OF
Murphy, Patrick 50 738 P

Once again, volume was an issue for me on this team, especially with my pitching. Since I got less than 150 innings from Scherzer and Wheeler individually and I lost Steven Matz and Hyun-Jin Ryu for the majority of the season, I became reliant on Patrick Corbin and Kyle Gibson to give me innings which clearly was not good for my ratios. I actually had a good amount of saves, but could have benefited from one more closer.

My offense was atrocious. Cedric Mullins, Alex Bregman, Gleyber Torres, and Eugenio Suarez were the only hitters that registered 500 at bats for my team and you just can’t win a league like this that way. The amount of big busts on this offense is the reason I struggled: Nick Castellanos, Jared Walsh, Brandon Lowe, Trent Grisham, and Jesus Sanchez all struggling with injury or poor performance crushed my ability to accumulate the way you need to in these draft and hold formats.

Finally, the back half of my draft was atrocious. I had some nice picks in Cole Irvin, Michael Chavis, Harold Ramirez, and TJ Freidl, but no real big breakouts and a number of guys that got me literally nothing. In these leagues, you have to get volume and if you don’t get it all in the first half of your draft, you must get it with accumulators or breakouts in the second half of the draft. I didn’t get it anywhere.

 

The Conclusion
I think this is an example of just a bad draft. I don’t know that there was a poor strategic approach, but more a matter of just picking players that not just underperformed, but most didn’t perform at all for my team. Like some of my other teams, I struggled with the mid round and late pitching and that is something I am staying cognizant of during my first draft that I am currently in. Rule #1 is to pick good players, I didn’t do that in this draft.





 

Justin is the co-host on The Sleeper and The Bust Podcast and writes for Rotographs covering the Roto Riteup as well as other periodic articles. In addition to his work at Rotographs, Justin is the lead fantasy writer/analyst and co-owner for FriendswithFantasyBenefits.com, and the owner of The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational. He is also a certified addiction treatment counselor. Follow Justin on Twitter @JustinMasonFWFB.

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CC AFCMember since 2016
2 years ago

I’m sensing a theme here seeing one particular player come up all the time as there’s a drive into deep left field by Castellanos…

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