Outfield - Early Points League Rankings and Tiers

It’s never too early to start looking toward the fantasy baseball season, so I’m here to continue RotoBaller’s position-by-position rankings analysis series for points league and head-to-head (H2H) formats with the incredibly deep outfield position. There is a seemingly neverending stream of useful bats, but there are still clear chokepoints where the risk portfolio thickens. I'd suggest buying at least two anchors and then letting your speculative plays run.

Our mixed-league points staff rankings come straight from the minds of myself, JB Branson and Bill Dubiel (a.k.a. the fourth-most accurate MLB expert for 2017 on FantasyPros), and we’ve got them broken down into tiers for both the sake of digestible content and because your rankings should always be tiered. For this exercise, hitters get a bump for total bases, walks and take a hit for strikeouts.

Keep an eye out for all other positions to follow! In the meantime, you can also see all of our preliminary 2019 fantasy baseball rankings for mixed leagues here. Bookmark that page and come back for updates throughout the coming months as you prepare to dominate on draft day. Without any more delay, let's take a look at the 2019 outfield points league rankings for January.

2019 Fantasy Baseball Points League Rankings: Outfield

Outfield Points League Rankings: Upper Tiers

Tier One

Make no mistake, the points format would have to be incredibly pitcher-friendly for you to pass up Mike Trout at No. 1. I understand that’s perfectly possible, but we run the risk of normalizing just how great Trout is due to his lack of flair and postseason record, in my opinion. The amateur meteorologist has been a first-round stud for seven seasons even though he’s just 27 years old, as even injuries in the past two seasons haven’t kept him from crossing the 30 HR/20 SB threshold in each year. With a wild 20.1% walk rate thrown on top of the action last season, Trout’s your alpha.

If you don’t have the first overall pick or an auction strategy that supplies you with Trout, then any of Betts, Martinez, Yelich, Harper and Acuna will surely suffice as an offensive anchor. The two Red Sox are established hitting stars, while Yelich only has one killer year under his belt but it came once he was freed from Miami’s awful park/team environment so there’s hope for lesser regression. Harper’s 18.7% walk rate trailed only Trout in the OF department (min. 200 PAs) and while he’s without a team at the moment, we need to remember he has 40-homer pop, 20-steal wheels and a swing capable of a .330 average as he enters his age-26 season. Acuna is the “outlier” without a full big-league season but has 30/20/.300 skills to flex atop Atlanta’s lineup with all of the PAs that provides despite the 25% strikeout rate.

Tier Two

Fear not if you missed out on the top six, as the next six are pretty damn good too. You can see Bill and JB agree on Judge being the best of this bunch, as he fought through an injury to produce a .919 OPS after posting a mammoth 1.049 OPS during his 52-homer rookie campaign. He turns 27 in April and will likely always bring a 30% strikeout rate with him, but a 15% walk rate and a real shot at 230 R+RBI in that lineup/stadium helps bring balance.

Call me crazy, but I’d rather have Soto over Judge in this format, which will cause Bill to backhand slap me. I know, I know. But the .923 OPS and 16% walk rate against 20% strikeout rate as an age-19 rookie using all fields is just beautiful. That kind of plate discipline and bat control doesn’t grow on trees and I’m here in case he brings that K rate below his BB rate like he often did in the Minors. Let’s be clear, you’re happy with either.

Blackmon and Benintendi are on opposite sides of the aging curve, but both offer a solid HR+SB floor while getting a R+RBI boost by hitting in the upper third of a high-octane offense. Bryant’s shoulder injury dinged his 2018 but we know he’s a special talent and while he may still have a lower fly-ball rate and tempered power returns, a healthy KB means an OBP around .400 and around 200 R+RBI. Meanwhile Stanton’s “down season” saw him stay off of the DL for the second straight season while reaching both 100 runs and 100 RBI with 38 dingers.

Tier Three

While I’d prefer to have the Tier Three group be my second outfielder, there’s no shame in bulking up the rest of your squad and having one of these lead the way. Hoskins is a thrilling young talent who won’t have to worry about manning the outfield anymore. Springer gets to feast atop Houston’s batting order and even with terrible baserunning and an uninspiring average, he’s a threat for 700 PAs and volume makes him a big player.

We’re all largely in step on these guys, but it’s worth noting JB is a bit lower on Marte. This is likely due to a walk rate that’s lucky to hold around 6% and an OPS that’s only topped .790 once in his last four seasons. Not to mention Pittsburgh’s rebuild is going to hinder those counting stats, which also need to bake in Marte’s durability. Between injuries and a suspension, he’s only played in more than 150 games once with a career-high mark of 633 PAs.

Outfield Points League Rankings: Middle Tiers

Tier Four

Here’s where the depth of OF talent really starts to make itself known. We’re going beyond the top-25 with this crop and yet you’re still dealing with top-100 players -- none of us have a single player in the triple digits. Those with notable gaps in the ranks are Haniger, Peralta and Pollock. Please note that Pollock hadn’t signed when we submitted these for article use.

Haniger’s 90-26-93-8-.285/.366/.493 line from 2018 showed that the flash in ‘17 was legitimate and his walk rate rising from 7.6% to 10.2% alongside modest hard-hit rate gains is enough for me to buy in. My bearishness on Peralta comes from trusting an age-30 breakout that hinged on his hard-hit rate exploding to 48.6% after never topping 36% before. This yielded a HR/FB rate that jumped from 12.2% in ‘17 to 23.4% in ‘18, but his OPS still sat at .868 with 162 R+RBI.

Pollock deserves more love from me now that I know he’s embedded in LAD’s lineup, though he’ll need to stem the awful plate discipline he showed last season. His walk rate fell a bit (from 7.5% to 6.7%) while his K rate went from 15.2% to 21.7% on the back of a career-worst 10.7% swinging-strike rate. At least it came with a career-best .228 ISO and his going 13-of-15 on steal attempts, though, so the talent finds ways to show itself.

Tier Five

The fifth tier sees us widen the lens with a grouping over 10, but they’re all worthy of your attention. While a few of these guys are “boring” (aka stable commodities), there’s a ton of upside mixed with a low floor. Boring can work a bit better in points leagues than other formats due to the value of accumulators. Targeting playing time and PAs is a good formula.

One of everyone’s favorite “sleepers,” Jesse Winker, can be found here. Winker’s .366 wOBA was 33rd out of 313 players with at least 250 PAs while his xwOBA was 36th, but he also needs to learn to hit lefties (career 15-for-82 vs. LHP). At least he demolishes righties, with a career .328/.421/.503 slash line against them with nearly identical walk and strikeout rates around 14%.

We’ve found our first huge disagreement, as Bill thinks Nimmo is a top-100 bat while JB and I paint him closer to No. 150. I can see where Bill’s coming from given Nimmo’s ridiculous .404 OBP and the 20 HR/10 SB skill set, but I still see warning signs. Namely, that he can’t hit southpaws well at all. He only delivered a .234 /.351/.391 slash line while striking out in nearly one-of-three PAs in ‘18, and his career OPS of .688 vs. LHP (208 PAs) is ugly compared to the .893 OPS vs. RHP (622 PAs). The Mets aren’t shy about protecting him from lefties and may bat Amed Rosario leadoff (he hit .284 against them last season) against portsiders even if Nimmo does play.

Tier Six

This tier groups most speedsters in Gordon, Robles and Mallex Smith, but also some more one-dimensional sluggers such as Kyle Schwarber and Joey Gallo. You can see most of my ranks are tight within this band, though I disagree on Schwarber being this high while JB would likely drop Bader and Gallo into the next train.

Schwarber and Gallo both have walk rates around the 12-15% range to go with their strong swings, with Gallo’s increased homers coming with increased strikeouts. We can’t ignore that Schwarbs’s has a career-high 510 PAs while Gallo has banked 532 and 577 PAs in each of the last two seasons. Meanwhile, Bader is a defensive whiz and sports 20/20 potential, though the 29.3% strikeout rate from 427 PAs last season does cap his upside.

Tier Seven

We’re largely in step with one another in this bunch, with the biggest range comes from Matt Kemp. Now in hitting-friendly Great American Ballpark, his 14th season in the bigs may revive his power back over the .200 ISO mark. While his .290/.338/.481 line with a .190 ISO wasn’t mindblowing, he quietly turned in a career-best 26.8% line-drive rate and 43.5% hard-hit rate. That helps explain his BABIP bouncing back up to .339 after turning in marks of .311, .297 and .318 over the previous three seasons. If he keeps most of those gains then I get the love, but I’m hard-pressed to buy in at this point in the aging curve.

Tier Eight

Take chances, make mistakes, get messy! Let me lead with stating that Kepler needs to be higher, though I fully expect his preseason sleeper status to reach heights that chip away at much of the profit to be had.

If I could pick one bat to buy into for upside’s sake then I’ll take Happ, who could take a Javier Baez-ian leap in ‘19 with a similar power profile. The 2015 first-round pick started off the ‘18 season with a first-pitch homer but then cooled, posting a .761 OPS despite a 15.2% walk rate as the wild 36.1% strikeout rate left little room for bad luck.

You can see I’m also the lowest on Adam Jones and Billy Hamilton, as I’m worried Jones ends up signing onto a team that may not view him as an everyday, leadoff hitter and he needs volume to return value without a high walk rate or steals. Then there’s Hamilton, who is likely stuck batting ninth in a stadium known for its cruelty towards hitters with an uninspiring lineup around him. If his OBP is merely .300 then it’ll be the first time he’s hit that mark in three seasons.

Outfield Points League Rankings: Lower Tiers

Tier Nine

You’ve got to have faith here! Faith that Adam Eaton and Steven Souza can stay on the field. That Jackie Bradley can keep a hot streak going for more than a month. That Kyle Tucker can make it in the bigs (with relevant playing time). That Kole Calhoun won’t disappear for half the season. That Domingo Santana can reclaim some of 2016’s glory. That Brian Anderson can accumulate enough stats on the Marlins with an OPS likely under .775. That Franmil Reyes and Manny Margot can stay hot and play more than five times a week in San Diego. And that Jake Bauers won’t get platooned to irrelevance in Cleveland.

Tier 10

Here we find Byron “Best Shape of His Life” Buxton, who reportedly added 21 pounds of muscle this offseason in an effort to remain healthy and is a worthwhile flier towards pick No. 300, but he has several obstacles to overcome. He’s got a gigantic chip on his shoulder after management kept him down for all of 2018 and will probably hit ninth to open the season, though a strong spring might inspire his leapfrogging Jorge Polanco. The usual 30% strikeout rate is working against his hitting so high, though.

I’m highest on Franchy Cordero and his 70-grade raw power, but the aforementioned playing risk for Franmil Reyes goes for Cordero as well. You’re not getting away from a strikeout rate that likely settles above 30% but 154 MLB PAs saw him post a 48.2% hard-hit rate and smash seven homers while swiping five bases. He’s got 30/20 potential if he had an everyday job, but that’s impossible to vouch for at this time.

If an injury opens a lane for Tyler O’Neill to see the field regularly than you need to be there. Out of hitters with at least 50 batted-ball events, O’Neill’s 12% barrels per plate appearance rate was second only Luke Voit (12.4%) in ‘18. That would’ve evened out a bit with a bigger sample size, but the power is so real. He didn’t just luck into 26 homers over just 273 Triple-A PAs in ‘18 before getting called up, so watch his name closely.

Tier 11

Do note that Adam Duvall was ranked here before the Nick Markakis signing by Atlanta pushes his playing time further to the brink. I wouldn’t draft him if I could help it. You know that drafting Yoenis Cespedes means you’re sacrificing a bench/DL slot for the 20% chance that his heels hold up and the quads don’t strain themselves as he works back into game shape.

Instead, Bill and I would have you pay Jake Cave some mind, especially if you miss on Buxton and want to hedge against him. Not only can philosophy enthusiasts make some serious Plato jokes, but Cave quietly posted a .208 ISO in ‘18 -- tied with Haniger and just ahead of Justin Upton and Michael Conforto.

If you find yourself in leagues with only four or five bench slots then you should scoop up Niko Goodrum, Detroit’s very own Swiss-Army knife. His first full season came at 26 years old, as he smacked 16 homers while bagging 12 steals over 492 PAs (131 games). While the pop is likely maxed out, he’s shown greater speed with a 29.1 ft/sec sprint speed and he stole 84 bags between 2013-15 in the Minors.

Tier 12

The rest of the...rest, these 25 players are where you should throw caution to the wind and hunt upside. The guys I should move up a little and I think are worth your attention are Joc Pederson, Jorge Soler, Steven Duggar, Albert Almora, Leonys Martin, Enrique Hernandez and Dexter Fowler.

That last name may have caused some of you to close out the window, but Fowler’s terrible offensive season still had an 11.4% walk rate that was tied for 22nd place out of 110 outfielders with at least 300 PAs. He’ll need to hit above the Mendoza line, of course, but he’s only 33 years old and had posted an OPS of .840 and .851 in ‘16 and ‘17, respectively.

If Cleveland doesn’t do anything else between now and Opening Day, then Martin is likely their everyday centerfielder as Bradley Zimmer continues to recover. You’re not buying into any great plate discipline and he’d likely bat in the lower third of the order, but lefty-swingers taking hacks at Progressive Field are cash money.

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