Outfield is an extremely shallow position. In drafts owners should try to acquire three of the top 20-25 outfielders for their teams because if a team doesn’t teams will have the likes of Will Venable as their second outfielder.
Previous rankings: Catchers, First Base, Second Base, Third Base, Shortstop Outfield part one and part two, Pitchers part one, part two, and part three.
- Mike Trout
- Adam Jones – after Trout, is the safest player on this list in terms of team around him and skill set.
- Andrew McCutchen – extremely safe for 20/20, but the 31 home runs in 2012 seems to be an outlier; fantasy owners should expect 25 home runs.
- Carlos Gomez – has 30/40 upside, but is a .250-.260 hitter rather than a .284 hitter.
- Carlos Gonzalez – has never played more than 145 games in the majors; has averaged 130 games since 2010.
- Allen Craig – see first base rankings.
- Bryce Harper – given the shallowness of this position Harper shouldn’t be this high, but his upside is too good pass up; I’m giving him a mulligan due the injuries; before running into the wall in Los Angeles his slash line was .303/.400/.622; after the injury .262/.356/.433.
- Ryan Braun – will be one the most polarizing players in drafts; skill set seemed in tact, but only four stolen bases leads me to believe he may only steal 15-20 bases instead of 30+.
- Jacoby Ellsbury – ranking may be too high, but I’m assuming he stays in Boston.
- Jay Bruce – three straight years with 30+ home runs.
- Hunter Pence – he may look uncordinated and a little goofy, but his performance is legit; he probably will not age well and will eventually be the new Aaron Rowand in 2016.
- Giancarlo Stanton – with a better supporting cast around him next year,
- Matt Kemp – will either finish the year as a top 8 eight player or top 50 player; I probably will not own Kemp
- Jason Heyward – just turned 24 years old and will most likely hit in the middle of the Braves lineup; if he played a full season he would have finished the year with 21.27 home runs and four stolen bases.
- Jose Bautista – season was cut short due to a left hip bone bruise, but is legitimate candidate to lead the majors in home runs if he plays a full season.
- Justin Upton – his draft day value will most likely be driven by the upside of his prospect status years ago, but his numbers say he’s a good player, not a great player.
- Matt Holliday – will turn 34 in January and shows no signs of slowing down.
- Alex Gordon – high floor, low upside player; better than the .265 average suggests.
- Domonic Brown – 44% of Brown’s home runs occurred in 12 games; if you remove those 12 games he only had 15 home runs with a slash line of .251/.333/.407.
- Wil Myers – probably too high on him and overrating the performance he’s shown in a small sample size.
- Austin Jackson – will most likely be a 10/10 player, but if he plays a full season, could lead the league in runs scored.
- Jayson Werth – two straight years with .300+ batting averages and .356+ BABIPs, but will turn 35 in May.
- Shin-Soo Choo – if Choo stays on the Reds, he‘s a top 10-13 outfielder.
- Yoenis Cespedes – the scouting report from Jason Parks at Baseball Prospectus changed how I looked at Cespedes’ upside.
- Starling Marte – probably is more of a .265-.270 hitter than a .280 hitter, but the speed is legit.
- Curtis Granderson – home runs will decrease dramatically if he leaves the friendly confines of New York.
- B.J. Upton – similar to Matt Kemp in that he will either dramatically outperform or under perform his draft day value; the more shallow the league, the higher he should go in drafts.
- Yasiel Puig – after his hot start in June, Puig came back down to Earth with a slash line of .278/.366/.470; hype surrounding him will likely make him a top ten outfielder, which means I will not own him.
- Dexter Fowler – career .241 hitter on the road; should be platooned when he is on the road.
- Will Venable – platoon player who will (should) not play against left handed pitching, which thereby decreases Venable’s value in head-to-head leagues.
