Justin Mason’s 2022 Apology Tour: NFBC 50 #1

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 sixth team I am covering in my apology tour is my fourth draft of the year. The draft was a slow draft that began on December 8, 2021. 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 12th.

The Draft
Once again I had a strong start with Trea Turner, Zack Wheeler, and Cedric Mullins from the first spot.

So what went wrong? As in my other draft and hold leagues, I struggled to get the necessary volume to compete. I only had six hitters hit the 500 plate appearance mark for my team and just two pitchers threw over 150 innings for my team. To be quite honest, I think the real reason my team was so bad was complacency. With so many teams I didn’t pay close enough attention to this team as the season went along. Looking at the stats I left on my bench, I had big opportunities to repair my ratios. I left guys like Brady Singer (returning from the minors), Zack Wheeler (returning from the IL), Ryan Yarbrough (returning from the IL), Eli Morgan (middle reliever), and Chris Flexen (six man rotation) on my bench. That was 440 innings of pretty good work. Now, that wouldn’t have saved my team, but it would have made my pitching much more competitive.

While I definitely had similar issues on my offense, it was more about the underperformers and complete busts I had in my offense. J.D Martinez, Yuli Gurriel, Ke’Bryan Hayes, Nick Castellanos, Max Kepler, Frank Schwindel, Brandon Lowe, Brandon Marsh, Bobby Dalbec, Akil Baddoo, and Abraham Toro did not return value for me. When that percentage of your offense does not return value, it is impossible to compete, especially in a 12-team league where everyone has a good roster for the most part.

The Conclusion
Like I said above, I struggled to get the necessary volume to compete. I had about 500 fewer at bats and 300 fewer innings than Lucas Biery who won the league. That is the equivalent to him having an extra pitcher and an extra hitter on his roster! Add in the fact that I just did not get enough value for my offense and it was unlikely I was going to be competitive.

I also want to acknowledge, I wasn’t doing my due diligence on this team. There’s no excuse for it to be honest. I play in a lot of leagues, but I also pride myself in paying attention and being active all the way through, even when my teams aren’t good and this was not the case here. It doesn’t matter what league you play in, some people will give up or get complacent. If you are able to keep grinding, you can make up some ground in just about any league. I didn’t do that here and it is the reason I finished last.