2023 Outfield Preview, Part 2
Here’s what we’ve done so far:
Outfield (part1)
I left off around pick 150 with Ian Happ being the last player mentioned. We’re not into some much murkier territory.
Tier Five
Brandon Nimmo
Harrison Bader
Mitch Haniger
Oscar Gonzalez
Lars Nootbaar
Cody Bellinger
Riley Greene
Alex Verdugo
Ramon Laureano
Masataka Yoshida
Andrew Benintendi
Not exactly a list of players you’re pumped to start. We mostly have secure playing time here, so that’s something at least. The players that could fall short of everyday playing time would be Gonzalez and Nootbaar, but chances are they’ll both be fine.
I think we pretty much just have to go player-by-player here because this tier of players is pretty unique.
Nimmo: He’s not really a guy for me. The projection is 15 homers and six steals with a .263 batting average. That batting average projection is pretty low given that he crushed that mark in 2021 and slightly beat it last year. Nimmo is a great OBP guy - so he gets a boost in those leagues. The reason you draft him in a standard league, I suppose, is the relative safety of his playing time and run-scoring in a good lineup. But yeah the ceiling is tiny and there are a ton of paths to him just not helping your team much at all.
Bader: He should stay in the lineup as the team’s best defensive outfielder. He can steal a bunch of bags, but won’t hit many homers even in Yankees Stadium. The projection is 55 R, 10 HR, 49 RBI, 19 SB, .244 - so that’s not all that great. There’s some upside in the bag though, especially if he somehow ends up leading off for the team, but that seems unlikely.
Haniger: You have the problem of health, as well as the fact that he’s going to one of the toughest ballparks to homer in. Since homers have long been Haniger’s lone calling card, it’s hard to feel good about him. The projection is 25 homers but a .240 batting average and one steal. That’s about right if he plays 140+ games, but yeah I don’t think I’ll have any of Haniger this year.
Gonzalez: Didn’t show any elite skills last year with a 7.3% Brl% and a .309 xwOBA. Doesn’t hit the ball particularly hard and he’s not a steals guy (a total of 2 steals in the last two years at all levels). The good news is the sub-20% K% and the fact that he’s very young. He did hit 40 homers in 703 PAs between 2021 and 2022 in the minors, so maybe there’s some power here but what we saw in the Majors last year was a little discouraging in that regard. Feels like a 20-homer, .270 ceiling with no steals, so I’m not really into it.
Nootbaar: He’s probably the most exciting of the group. He finished last year with a poor .228 batting average in the Majors but 14 homers and four steals in just 347 PA. The 12% barrel rate is great and it comes with a low 20.% K% and a high 14.5% BB%. He also hit a ball above 115 miles per hour, so the profile is pretty alluring. He’s my favorite of the bunch.
Bellinger: Typically we don’t like when players leave the Dodgers, but in Bellinger’s case maybe we should. He performed so, so poorly over the last two years that it’s hard to not like any kind of change. We know that he’s a green-light guy on the basepaths, and you can’t completely forget about those 2018-2019 seasons. It will be interesting to see if he reduces the strikeout rate early on in the season, if he does that we could really have something for what he costs.
Greene: I’ve been a big proponent of the post-hype buy on Greene. It was an unexciting rookie season for him with a .253/.321/.362 line with just five homers in 418 PAs and one lone steal (he was caught stealing four times though). He has a ground-ball problem (57%) as well as a strikeout problem (29%). You absolutely do not want a player with a 25%+ strikeout rate and a 55%+ GB% on your teams - so we are hoping for major changes. The silver lining is that he didn’t have these huge GB% problems in the minors, and the strikeout rates were lower as well (although not that much lower). He does hit the ball hard though, so there’s upside in that regard. My projection system likes him quite a bit with a .271 batting average and 20 homers - but that’s assuming he really improves in the strikeout department (projecting a 24% K%). The reason for that lower K% projection has something to do with the about average 74% contact rate he put up in the Majors. If you look at hitters around a 72-76% contact rate you find strikeout rates around 23% rather than 28% - so I think he can improve in a hurry. Nootbaar is much more appealing, but Greene isn’t unworthy of the pick in my opinion.
Verdugo: You know what you’re getting. A good batting average, some steals, and non-zero power. He could also get an opportunity boost as Boston’s lead-off hitter this year, and that would be good for his run-scoring. Not an exciting pick, but a safe guy to fill an outfield spot for you.
Laureano: He actually gets drafted way behind this group, but I think he’s firmly in this tier. My projection system has him for 21 homers and 20 steals. Even the .237 batting average, 61 R, and 55 RBI can’t do enough to knock him down from a fantasy perspective if he’s going to flirt with 20-20. He’s worth $10 per my projections, which is more than everybody else in this tier. There’s also a very good chance he gets dealt in July to a much better team. That by itself is a pretty good reason to buy him after pick 200. He has been one of my most-drafted players so far.
Yoshida: I have no idea! I won’t draft him just because of the sheer uncertainty, but with uncertainty comes upside.
Benintendi: He will probably come up in ADP after news that he worked on pulling more fly balls in the offseason. He’s already a solid batting average (.277) and steals (11) projection, so with a few more homers (projected for 11 right now), you could really have something. He’s another one of my favorite targets at an outfield position that gets really tough after pick 150.
Tier Six
Lourdes Gurriel Jr.
Michael Conforto
Bryan De La Cruz
Esteury Ruiz
Joc Pederson
Randal Grichuk
Austin Hays
Jesse Winker
Austin Meadows
The only players here with locks on an everyday starting job would be Conforto, Winker, and Meadows - I think.
With Conforto, you have the fact that nobody wanted to touch him last year. A lost season with an injury makes it harder to believe he can ever get back to who he used to be - and San Francisco isn’t a great place for left-handed power. I’ll probably let him be, but if we get the old Conforto back he’ll be a great get this late.
I like buying in on the bounce-back in the cases of Winker and Meadows. Winker goes to a good hitting environment in Milwaukee, and Meadows’ price just seems to have fallen way too far. A lot can go wrong with either guy, but they are by far my favorite two picks of this tier.
I like Bryan De La Cruz a good bit too, but we saw some news that he could platoon with Jesus Sanchez, which would eviscerate his fantasy value since he’d be benched a ton against right-handed pitching, which is two-thirds of the league. He’s hands-off for me now, which sucks because I drafted him like three times prior to that news.
The specialists here are Ruiz for steals (he stole 89 bases and attempted 106 steals last year…) and Pederson for power. Ruiz probably can’t get more than a handful of homers in the Majors, and Pederson doesn’t see the field against left-handed pitching. In both cases, they will do enough in their respective categories to matter even with more-limited playing time - so you can certainly have these guys on your teams.
Tier Seven
If you are in a shallow league (300 players drafted or less), please get your outfield done before this point. There’s almost nothing left to like.
Brandon Marsh
Lane Thomas
Charlie Blackmon
Garrett Mitchell
Jorge Soler
Jake Fraley
Manuel Margot
Jarred Kelenic
Jose Siri
Juan Yepez
Oswaldo Cabrera
Trent Grisham
Dylan Carlson
Marcell Ozuna
Alex Kirilloff
Avisail Garcia
Oscar Colas
None of these guys have locked-in playing time. The most confident playing time projections are Thomas, Blackmon, Fraley, Cabrera, and Garcia. There are plenty of issues with all of those names - namely that they all pretty much stink.
The upside picks in this tier are Grisham (steals and power that he’s shown in the past but MAN he was awful last year), Kirilloff (actually has been very impressive at the Majors but can’t shake the wrist injuries), and Colas (great minor league numbers, but uncertainty if he’s making the Major League team right now).
If I’m dipping my toes into this tier it’s probably just to take a long shot at one of those names, and it’s probably Kirilloff and/or Colas for me. Those are the two I could see being a top-50 pick next year.
As for the rest, you could do worse than Lane Thomas, Jake Fraley, and Manuel Margot. There are plenty of Rays that get drafted around this time, and they all have merit - but it’s hard to see how they’re going to construct their playing time this year. They have a bunch of average Major League bats and plenty of younger guys set to debut this year, so it’s hard to know what will happen - but if Siri and Margot play a full year (doubtful), they’ll steal a good number of bags and not kill you anywhere - so you could take some speculative shares of them.
I guess I should include that Garrett Mitchell has some upside with the Brewers. He showed a good 12% barrel rate in the Majors last year but yo - a 40% K%! In the minors, the K% was high at 26% as well, so there are some big-time problems there, but he’s a prospect guy so there’s always more upside there.
The Rest
We are past pick 350 now, and I’m needing to wrap this up. Here are some deep-league names that I will at the very least have an eye on when the season gets rolling.
Max Kepler
Michael Brantley
Edward Olivares
TJ Friedl
Mike Yastrzemski
Tommy Pham
Tyrone Taylor
Kerry Carpenter
Alek Thomas
A.J. Pollock
Adam Duvall
Trayce Thompson
Jack Suwinski
The prospect/upside names here are Olivares, Carpenter, and Thomas.
The guys that have upside to be an actual good fantasy hitter are Kepler (a few steals, some homers, and a better batting average maybe if the shifting stuff works his way), Taylor (has always hit the ball well but hasn’t been able to find consistent playing time, and he might be able to find it this year), Carpenter (great minor league numbers, good barrel rate in the Majors last year), Thompson (he’s almost surely not going to start against righties, but he has huge power), and Suwinski (really good barrel rate last year but strikeout issues).
I’m targeting this series more towards the 12-team, 25-round draft leagues - so these names can just be ignored (on draft day, at least) in that context.
Wrap Up
We will surely look back at the 2023 season and find that a ton of useful fantasy outfielders came available to us during the season, so to me it’s fine to leave a draft not loving your outfield as long as you can use waivers and trades to beef it up.
As I said before, optimally I want one of the top-tier options, and I want one or two of the tier-three guys as well. To me, those are the two best places to start your outfield with. If I miss tier one, it’s okay - but I’ll be hitting tiers three and four hard.
That’s it for the outfield - let me know if you have any questions or want some opinions on specific players!