Justin Mason’s 2022 Apology Tour: NFBC 50 #2

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October 21, 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 eighth team I am covering in my apology tour was my sixth draft of the year. The draft was a slow draft that began on January 8, 2022. This was a 50 round draft and hold league. It is 5×5 roto with 12 teams rather than 15 teams like a Draft Champions league. The league had a number of great industry and non-industry players in it and I finished 8th.

Justin Mason’s NFBC #2 Standings
Rank Team Overall Rank Hitting Pitching Points
1 Beck 42 52 48 100
2 Witsberger_50a 99 51 42.5 93.5
3 Spin Rate Spate 343 44 39 83
4 Blois 1194 27 41 68
5 Manfreds Replacement Players 1267 21 46 67
6 Kurland – 1 NFBC 50 2029 37 23.5 60.5
7 Charger Bar 4 1765 37.5 22 59.5
8 Ma50n 2 2464 31 25 56
9 Wi77iams 50 2450 34 17.5 51.5
10 Plinko 2676 21 29 50
10 Marshall 2550 13 37 50
12 Peinovich 3124 21.5 19.5 41

The Draft
Once again, I had a pretty strong start to my draft before things fell apart. Starting Jose Ramirez, Cedric Mullins and Zack Wheeler was fine in spite of the fact I didn’t get enough innings from Wheeler.

Justin Mason’s NFBC #2 Draft
Player Round Pick Pos
Ramirez, Jose 1 2 3B
Mullins, Cedric 2 23 OF
Wheeler, Zack 3 26 P
Iglesias, Raisel 4 47 P
Diaz, Edwin 5 50 P
Mondesi, Adalberto 6 71 CI
Alonso, Pete 7 74 1B
Polanco, Jorge 8 95 2B
Montas, Frankie 9 98 P
Correa, Carlos 10 119 SS
Winker, Jesse 11 122 OF
Valdez, Framber 12 143 P
Meadows, Austin 13 146 OF
Cruz, Nelson 14 167 UT
Happ, Ian 15 170 OF
Ryu, Hyun Jin 16 191 P
Cruz, Oneil 17 194 MI
Kirk, Alejandro 18 215 C
Matz, Steven 19 218 P
Wood, Alex 20 239 P
Santander, Anthony 21 242 OF
Sanchez, Gary 22 263 C
Torkelson, Spencer 23 266 1B
Bauer, Trevor 24 287 P
Finnegan, Kyle 25 290 P
Nimmo, Brandon 26 311 OF
Molina, Yadier 27 314 C
Heaney, Andrew 28 335 P
Wick, Rowan 29 338 P
Rainey, Tanner 30 359 P
Margot, Manuel 31 362 OF
Corbin, Patrick 32 383 P
Solak, Nick 33 386 2B
Gil, Luis 34 407 P
Zimmer, Bradley 35 410 OF
Wade, Tyler 36 431 3B
Santana, Carlos 37 434 1B
Martinez, Nick 38 455 P
Stratton, Chris 39 458 P
Jeffers, Ryan 40 479 C
Irvin, Cole 41 482 P
Garcia, Leury 42 503 2B
Eflin, Zach 43 506 P
Lorenzen, Michael 44 527 P
Upton, Justin 45 530 OF
Hernandez, Yadiel 46 551 OF
Suter, Brent 47 554 P
Santillan, Tony 48 575 P
Burger, Jake 49 578 3B
Pinder, Chad 50 599 OF

So where did things go wrong?

First, I got hit by a number of injuries. I lost Adalberto Mondesi, Austin Meadows, Hyun Jin Ryu, Luis Gil, Tanner Rainey, and Steven Matz. I can’t really complain too much about it though as I knew the risks associated with Mondesi, Meadows and Ryu. Also, while I lost Rainey to injury and Raisel Iglesias to trade, I still won the saves category, so it is not like it crushed me losing those closers.

One of the recurring themes in this series has become the lack of starting pitching depth that I had. Framber Valdez threw 201.1 innings for me, but he was the only pitcher of mine that registered over 150 innings for my team and I only had four pitchers throw over 100 innings for me. That is devastating in a format like this in which you can’t stream pitchers and volume is king.

The last issue I had was the underperformance of my offense. You can survive losing pieces like I did with Meadows and Mondesi, but not if you have busts on your team like Jorge Polanco, Spencer Torkelson, Jesse Winker, and Gary Sanchez without getting some big breakout guys later on, which I just didn’t do.

The Conclusion
We are starting to see the common trends are starting to become apparent.
Not a strong enough investment in starting pitching in the middle and late rounds.
Not getting the late breakout picks.
Not avoiding enough obvious injury prone/risk players.

I think this one hurts a little less because I think I made some silly mistakes in drafting Ryu, Mondesi, and Meadows. That is an easy fix to make. In spite of getting some bad luck with closers, I was still great in the category. I think a couple of better decisions in the draft and with my in-season management could have made this a very successful team and while it sucks that it wasn’t, the strategic issues are easily fixed.





 

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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TheNewTenTwelveMember since 2020
2 years ago

It’s been fun to see your go-to draft targets across the multiple leagues. I’m surprised you haven’t really mentioned Santander yet that I had seen.

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