Rest of Season Ranks - Outfield
A summer series of posts re-ranking players by position
It’s been a couple of weeks since I wrote that 3B rankings piece, but I’m back to finish this baby off. I would probably make some changes to those previous positions if re-doing them today, but I’m not going back!
We move onward to the beast that is the outfield. This position is 3x bigger than the others, so it was a big pain! But I think I have it down now. Feel free to roast me in the comments, good chance that I’ve missed someone.
Tier One
Ronald Acuna Jr.
Mookie Betts
Corbin Carroll
Fernando Tatis Jr.
Kyle Tucker
Adolis Garcia
Acuna Jr. is probably tier one all by his lonesome. .331/.408/.582, 21 HR, 41 SB at the all-star break, it’s just insane. He has 1,128 fantasy points scored this year, only one other player (Ohtani) is above 1,000 - and the third place hitter is Freddie Freeman wayyyy down at 951 points. At his current pace, it would take Freeman 75 PAs to catch Acuna, so the gap is just humungous.
The next five there are pretty close to each other. Kyle Tucker’s performance has been short of this group (only 13 homers and 15 steals), but I don’t see any problems in his profile so I think he’ll likely perform in the top tier in the second half.
Tier Two
Juan Soto
Aaron Judge
Yordan Alvarez
Randy Arozarena
Luis Robert
Julio Rodriguez
Michael Harris II
Next is this grouping of hitters that could all end up in tier one in reality. Judge & Yordan would be there already if they weren’t currently injured. I’m being a bit gracious to them I think putting them in the top ten still, since every missed game hurts pretty significantly now with only ~70 games left to go.
The last four there are all five-category players with massive upside, but have all been short of consistent in their recent careers. Michael Harris and Luis Robert have really shot up the ranks in the last month or so, they were pretty bad to start the year - but I’m buying in on their second halves.
Tier Three
Cedric Mullins
Kyle Schwarber
George Springer
Bryce Harper
Things get shaky here, and there will be plenty of room for criticism of my ranks. This stuff is hard to do, especially when you try to do it in one afternoon.
Maybe this is too aggressive on Springer, but he’s just so solid. .266/.327/.419 this year with 13 homers and 13 steals. That makes him great at nothing, but good at everything. I’m sure there will be some bust-outs in the second half that really crush his performance, but I’d take him with a pretty high pick if we were drafting today just for the five-category reliability.
Tier Four
Jordan Walker
Masataka Yoshida
Byron Buxton
Christian Yelich
Bryan Reynolds
Anthony Santander
Teoscar Hernandez
Starling Marte
Good mix of upside and safety here. Walker is doing everything right without getting a ton of fantasy results so far (only 8 homers and 3 steals in 202 PA, about a 25-10 pace), so I would the fantasy point production will speed up in the second half since he’s solidified now and seemingly getting better as we go.
Buxton/Yelich/Reynolds are all kind of just “very solid”, and I don’t think any of them have a ton of five-category upside at this point - but again, it’s a case of just getting guys that are reliable (although it’s silly to call Buxton reliable I guess, but whatever you get what I’m driving at here).
Starling Marte probably shouldn’t be this high with his poor .256/.309/.336 line this year, but he has 23 steals still and I could see a huge counting stat second half if the Mets get going. At this point, we’re missing at least one big things with each player we’re ranking.
Tier Five
Jorge Soler
Seiya Suzuki
Cody Bellinger
Riley Greene
Leody Taveras
Eloy Jimenez
Giancarlo Stanton
Jarren Duran
Lane Thomas
Nick Castellanos
Christopher Morel
And now these groups are too big for me to really spend much time on. I like buying in on Suzuki, Greene, and Stanton for the second half. I would probably be fading Duran, Thomas, Castellanos, and Morel.
Tier Six
Jake Fraley
Jack Suwinski
Josh Lowe
Esteury Ruiz
Marcell Ozuna
Lourdes Gurriel Jr.
Kerry Carpenter
Hunter Renfroe
LaMonte Wade Jr.
Andrew Vaughn
Nolan Jones
Ian Happ
TJ Friedl
Tommy Pham
Bryan De La Cruz
You can certainly start the criticisms here. I don’t think many people would have Suwinski this high or Gurriel Jr. this low given their first halves, but I’ve been watching Jack a lot this year and I’m really impressed. I think he’ll still be a high-strikeout, low batting average guy, but it wouldn’t be completely shocking if ends up with 40 bombs this year.
The guys in this group I could see really taking off would be Suwinski, Lowe, Carpenter, Vaughn, Jones, and De La Cruz.
Tier Seven
Brandon Nimmo
Harrison Bader
Jake McCarthy
Colton Cowser
Luke Raley
Henry Davis
Alex Verdugo
Ezequiel Duran
Matt Vierling
Whit Merrifield
Lars Nootbaar
Joey Wiemer
Mike Trout
Lots of one-category players here. And I had to throw in Trout somewhere. He’s out for at least another 6 weeks so it would be hard to draft him - but I’d still probably take the IL stash of him over the guys in the next tier.
Tier Eight
Jarred Kelenic
Jesus Sanchez
James Outman
Brandon Marsh
Adam Duvall
Taylor Ward
Trent Grisham
Brendan Donovan
Harold Ramirez
Andrew McCutchen
Joey Meneses
Steven Kwan
Tommy Edman
Kris Bryant
Jeff McNeil
Joc Pederson
Ramon Laureano
Andrew Benintendi
Brent Rooker
Chris Taylor
Michael Conforto
And here’s just “the rest”. I’m sure there are some guys out there I missed that should be taken above Rooker/Taylor/Conforto - who are all pretty useless. And there will probably be some rookies that get called up and outdo this tier significantly, but I don’t have that kind of crystal ball, so here’s what you get.
I don’t really want any of these guys on a fantasy team, but you could see guys like Outman, Marsh, Duvall, and Ward having pretty good second halves and making me look silly with this low ranking.
Comment who I missed and I’ll adjust the post! Thanks for reading!
I don't see Daulton Varsho, Ryan Noda, Mickey Moniak, or Jake Bauers. I think Varsho and Moniak are most deserving of being ranked. Moniak will see lots of playing time for the next several weeks, at least and Varsho is an everyday player. His rates are struggling, but he's getting his roto stats otherwise.
Is Josh Naylor not an OF in your format? He has eligibility in Yahoo and I would think he’s at least a tier 4