Francisco Lindor: 2022 Fantasy Baseball Bust?

The New York Mets finished the 2021 campaign with a 77-85 record overall, which was a very disappointing outcome after an active offseason. The third-place finish and missing the postseason was a shock to many seeing as they entered with a strong pitching staff and had signed Francisco Lindor to a massive 10-year, $341 million deal under new ownership.

Although Lindor signed a huge contract heading into 2021, he did not perform up to anyone's standards. He finished the campaign with a .230/.322/.412 slash line with 20 home runs, 63 RBI, 73 runs scored, and 10 stolen bases. He set career lows in AVG, OBP, SB, RBI, and R. This is not exactly what the Mets and their fans were expecting.

The question for Lindor heading into 2022 is whether or not he will be able to rebound from a down season and return value on his current ADP of 54. A deeper look into his advanced metrics should help us determine what type of performance we can expect moving forward.

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Francisco LinDONE?

The 2021 season notwithstanding, Lindor has shown the ability to be a five-category fantasy baseball player throughout his career. One look at his career stats lays this information out for us. Prior to 2021, Lindor hit 30 or more bombs and stole 15 or more bases while scoring 90 or more runs and driving in 70 or more runs in three consecutive seasons from 2017 to 2019.

That being said, we need to take a deeper look into his advanced metrics in order to determine his trajectory for 2022. Lindor has been known to hit for average while keeping his strikeout rate rather low. These two are key derivatives of his success.

In 2021, he posted the lowest average of his career with a .230 mark. He also posted the highest K rate of his career by striking out 18.3% of the time. This K rate is 2.5% higher than 2015's 15.8%, which was the highest of his career (rookie season) prior to 2021.

Lindor has also been a solid threat to steal bases in his career as he has stolen 15 or more bags in every season aside from his rookie season and the shortened 2020 season. That being said, he only attempted to steal 14 times in 2021 and stole just 10 bags. He spent a majority of his time batting second in 2021 as he saw 456 out of a possible 524 plate appearances here. This is a solid spot in the lineup to steal bases, yet he finished with just 10. Lindor is now expected to bat third in this Mets' lineup with the addition of Starling Marte, who is expected to take over the two-hole in the lineup. This will almost certainly reduce Lindor's chances of racking up stolen bases in 2022 and force him to become more of a power hitter focused on driving in runs.

Given that Lindor will be relied upon to produce runs, we should take a look at his batted ball profile. 2021 was not the best in terms of Lindor's batted ball profile as he produced 5.2% weak contact, which was below the league average of 3.7%. The 5.2% mark was also the worst mark of Lindor's career as he had never posted a number above 4.2%. He also got under the ball at a rate of 27.7%, which was the second-highest rate in his career and 3.3% above league average. If he is going to be batting third in this lineup, he will need to improve upon these numbers if he wants to be able to drive in runs at a rate we would expect from a number three batter.

Conclusion

Overall, Lindor took a step back in 2021 in terms of stolen bases and batted ball profile. He attempted the fewest number of stolen bases in his career and is likely to see this number continue to plummet as he finds himself moving down to third in the batting order. The move to third in the order should help his power numbers, but if he continues to put the ball on the ground as much as he did in 2021, we could see those numbers dwindle as he will be hitting into double plays instead of driving in runs.

He currently boasts an ADP of 54, which means he is being drafted in the middle of the fourth round in 12-team mixed leagues. He is also the ninth shortstop off the board at this ADP. Drafting someone like Eloy Jimenez or Randy Arozarena for overall value or Adalberto Mondesi for positional value may be the better selection here.

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