FABL Depth Charts Gemini Season
While I will make daily lineup changes to the fantasy baseball team that I actually drafted with other real-life humans, I only allow myself to tinker with the lineups in my Fantasy Astrology Baseball League once per week. Not only would it be far too much effort to set 13 lineups every day (12 FABL teams, plus my own), but it would provide too much of an opportunity for unintended bias to sneak through. But when the zodiac wheel turns to a different sign – such as when Taurus gave way to Gemini this past Saturday 5/21 – I’ll go a step further, and add new players to the lineups from the free agent pool.
Bold/Underline/Italic players were not on the season-opening rosters.
In order to determine who to add, I build depth charts for each team, going purely off fantasy points. No personal bias here – just hard numbers and the positional eligibility requirements of the ESPN site that I use. Sometimes I do have to break out my own points-calculating program, such as for Shohei Ohtani, whose listed points total of 1,031 (and 25.8 points-per-game) includes both his batting and pitching stats. His breakdown as of Gemini season is 558 points / 14.0 PPG as a batter, and 579 / 68.4 as a pitcher. Both would qualify as starters on the Cancer Crabs, but ESPN only allows him to be listed at one position at a time – flying in the face of the new “Ohtani Rule” implemented in this year’s CBA?
The top dedicated batter is Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge (700 / 19.4), who is on track to maintain his center field eligibility from last year. After that is another Cancer, third baseman Manny Machado (684 / 17.5) on the upstart Padres. Next is the Virgo who headlines my personal fantasy team, Jose Ramirez (669 / 18.6), the top-hitting player on a non-contending team. Skipping down to seventh among pure hitters, we have the first player not on a roster: Taylor Ward (610 / 20.3) has been absolutely mashing for the Angels, but since he was ranked 715th (out of 800) by MLB.com heading into the season, I didn’t include him on the Sagittarius season-opening roster. It’s unexpected success stories like this that make the baseball season so much fun to watch!
Players’ secondary positions are listed in parenthesis (or primary positions for DH’s).
After making it through the first page of batters on the ESPN site, it becomes apparent that Pisces was the most impacted by unexpected fantasy producers. Rowdy Tellez (499 / 13.1) of the Brewers has somehow outscored both Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (420 / 11.1) and Rhys Hoskins (419 / 11.0), while Giants middle infielder Thairo Estrada (451 / 12.2) beats out opening day second baseman Jean Segura (414 / 12.5) in terms of total points. Third base is still an issue for the Fish, as Wander Franco’s (444 / 12.0) 8 games there in 2021 were not enough for him to qualify, leaving utility player Leury Garcia (142 / 5.1) as the “best” hot corner option.
The Gemini pitching staff boasts the likes of Jacob deGrom, Shane Bieber, Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, and Jose Berrios. So who would have guessed that unheralded Brewers starter Eric Lauer (597 / 85.3) and (Minnesota) Twins rookie Joe Ryan (483 / 69.0) would have the most fantasy points of the lot? The (Gemini) Twins have enough offensive question marks that even an unexpected pitching breakout or two won’t move the needle on their basement-bound 2022 season, but it’s still fun to track even more Gemini pitching excellence.
Overall, it’s actually Sagittarius who has the top starting lineup so far, with an average of 473.3 fantasy points among batters and pitchers. It helps that closer Taylor Rogers (705 / 41.5) has the second-highest point total among pitchers, behind only Pisces future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander (718 / 102.6). Leo is next, with their average starter putting up 464.8 points on average, thanks to resurgent seasons from Mike Trout (653 / 18.1) and Zac Gallen (607 / 86.7), with Max Scherzer putting up characteristically excellent numbers (682 / 85.3), before suffering an oblique strain in his last start.
In the Negative Polarity, Pisces and Cancer are neck and neck, with average point totals of 446.3 and 443.9, respectively. Keep in mind, these calculations are done with my unorthodox positional eligibility requirements, where shortstops can play second base, and any infielder can slot in at first base, but only Taurus (Tommy Edman, 545 / 14.3) and Libra (Ketel Marte, 318 / 8.6) have to take advantage of the first base clause.
Next time, I‘ll continue my five-year recap for the end of the 1970s (1975 to 1979), but keep your eyes on my YouTube channel for more simulated FABL games on MLB The Show 22!