Outfield (Part 1): Updated March Rankings and Tiers

8 years ago by Nick Mariano

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1. 2017 Fantasy Baseball Rankings: Outfielders - Part One (March Updates)

2. Outfield (Part One) Rankings Analysis: March Risers and Fallers

We rolled out our final update on 2017 rankings this past weekend. While there haven’t been seismic shifts, some players have naturally seen their stocks rise or fall since our initial valuations were made in December. We’re gathered here today to look at part one of our outfield rankings, tiers, and auction values, which have certainly seen some movement. Part one of this OF look will check in with three risers and three fallers within the top five tiers.

As before, this round of rankings features picks from myself, Kyle Bishop, Bill Dubiel, Brad Johnson, Harris Yudin and Jeff Kahntroff.

Check out all of our updated rankings. Adjust your league size, and export your rankings. Tiers, auction values, prospects, news and more. It's all free.

Editor's Note: Our incredible team of writers received five total writing awards and 13 award nominations by the Fantasy Sports Writers Association, tops in the industry! Congrats to all the award winners and nominees including Best MLB Series, NFL Series, NBA Writer, PGA Writer and Player Notes writer of the year. Be sure to follow their analysis, rankings and advice all year long, and win big with RotoBaller! Read More!

2017 Fantasy Baseball Rankings: Outfielders - Part One (March Updates)

Ranking	Tier	Player	Position	Brad	Kyle	Nick	Bill	Harris	Jeff	Auction $
1	1	Mike Trout	OF	1	1	1	1	1	1	48
2	1	Mookie Betts	OF	3	3	2	6	2	2	46
3	1	Kris Bryant	3B/OF	2	2	3	5	3	4	46
4	2	Bryce Harper	OF	19	13	9	21	9	8	36
5	2	Charlie Blackmon	OF	11	17	12	13	16	12	35
6	2	Trea Turner	2B/OF	13	24	15	22	17	7	34
7	2	Nelson Cruz	OF	24	28	18	26	28	18	31
8	2	Starling Marte	OF	28	20	24	19	31	24	31
9	2	Ryan Braun	OF	33	31	21	16	30	28	30
10	2	J.D. Martinez	OF	38	18	29	30	36	30	28
11	2	Giancarlo Stanton	OF	25	36	41	29	29	39	26
12	3	A.J. Pollock	OF	29	39	20	35	39	42	25
13	3	George Springer	OF	35	34	36	44	21	35	25
14	3	Christian Yelich	OF	40	45	50	47	40	58	25
15	3	Carlos Gonzalez	OF	63	40	48	17	49	67	25
16	3	Kyle Schwarber	C/OF	61	44	65	45	72	48	21
17	3	Justin Upton	OF	67	67	42	52	50	57	21
18	3	Yoenis Cespedes	OF	37	42	35	143	35	49	21
19	3	Gregory Polanco	OF	55	59	54	50	88	56	20
20	3	Khris Davis	OF	90	77	55	62	98	80	19
21	3	Andrew McCutchen	OF	94	72	73	64	61	113	17
22	4	Jose Bautista	OF	49	71	90	170	80	50	17
23	4	Jose Ramirez	3B/OF	106	99	86	96	100	45	17
24	4	Matt Kemp	OF	80	87	75	86	97	114	15
25	4	Adam Jones	OF	122	86	79	83	81	118	15
26	4	Jackie Bradley	OF	99	76	107	88	89	115	15
27	4	Mark Trumbo	OF	136	134	85	107	74	60	15
28	4	Billy Hamilton	OF	120	111	127	87	77	92	15
29	4	Lorenzo Cain	OF	123	121	102	89	92	101	14
30	5	Odubel Herrera	OF	84	84	104	145	153	87	14
31	5	Andrew Benintendi	OF	116	147	115	82	107	112	13
32	5	Stephen Piscotty	OF	126	93	130	101	125	127	13
33	5	Ian Desmond	OF	100	118	144	190	51	107	10
34	5	Adam Eaton	OF	133	116	113	153	91	117	10
35	5	David Dahl	OF	104	107	119	117	90	189	10
36	5	Kole Calhoun	OF	109	133	125	140	126	142	10
37	5	Hunter Pence	OF	111	122	138	124	158	141	10
38	5	Dexter Fowler	OF	110	136	120	189	152	116	10
39	5	Ben Zobrist	2B/OF	132	117	157	183	150	109	9
40	5	Jose Peraza	SS/OF	91	143	141	284	161	95	8
41	5	Joc Pederson	OF	124	108	162	231	127	171	8
42	5	Adam Duvall	OF	196	153	163	91	189	144	8

Outfield (Part One) Rankings Analysis: March Risers and Fallers

Rankings Risers:
Giancarlo Stanton

Oh, how the mighty have…risen? Giancarlo Stanton, who is literally mighty, has leapfrogged his way into this tier after residing behind A.J. Pollock inside of Tier Three in the February rankings. Perhaps this is because he’s still healthy as the season draws near? Or perhaps it’s because of that outrageous moonshot that he launched a few days ago. Despite my own moving him down three slots, Bill and Harris combined to give him a 19-point jump that put the true 50-homer threat into the second tier.

Khris Davis

Davis also stepped up a tier, going from early in the fourth tier to late in the third as we appear to be warming up to these big boppers. With the fears that Oakland Coliseum would zap the power that he flashed at Miller Park well in the rearview mirror, as well as now having a 150-game season under his belt, the 29-year-old should be able to repeat his 2016 with close to 40 homers and 100 RBIs for fantasy owners. This is one of the few bats in the league that can sustain a 25% HR/FB rate and that needs to be respected.

Lorenzo Cain

Cain also got a bump from five to four in the tier department, as he shoots up six slots – from No. 35 overall in the OF to No. 29. It looks as though myself, Bill and Harris all jumped him at least 20 spots in our rankings. If their thinking was anything like mine, it was simply that I was undervaluing the potential five-category contributions that Cain has shown to be capable of. While he’s never been able to play in more than 140 games at any point in his big-league career, Cain still has that 85/15/70/25/.300 kind of stat line well within reach. We do need to bake in some durability risk into the ranking, but now four of the six rankers are well ahead of his average ADP of 121.5.
Rankings Fallers:
Kris Bryant

Well, would you look at that? It would appear that Mookie Betts has overtaken Kris Bryant for the No. 2 thanks to a shift by Bill. While four of the six rankers had these three within their top three overall, Bill had Bryant at No. 3 in the February round of rankings and now he has slotted him back at No. 5 (but still ahead of Betts at No. 6). It doesn’t sound like much, but within the top-10 that’s a pretty big step. No one is going to sit here and tell you that Bryant is a bad selection, but Bill now has Jose Altuve, Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt ranked ahead of him. With Altuve and Goldschmidt able to provide serious five-category juice and Arenado's Coors-infused power, perhaps one should think twice about automatically putting Bryant into their top three.

Yoenis Cespedes

Cespedes slid behind Christian Yelich, Carlos Gonzalez and Justin Upton here. This may be partly due to an error in how far Bill wanted to push him down, as No. 143 is leagues beyond the next lowest ranking (No. 49), but that doesn’t change that many of us – myself included – checked in lower on Yo in March than we did in February. Bill’s rankings aside, Kyle and I both knocked him down roughly 10 spots each. While Cespedes’ power is undeniable, I myself just didn’t feel as confident in his durability to make him an early third-rounder in 12-team leagues.

Odubel Herrera

Herrera slides into the fifth tier after checking in from Tier Four in February, as I know that I felt like I was giving his red-hot start in 2016 too much weight. It was lovely, don’t get me wrong, but I’m rather confident that who he was over the final four months of the season is the type of baseline to expect moving forward. That is, a guy who should flirt with a 15/25 season, but with a .270 average rather than a mark challenging the .290s. His limited RBI opportunities from the two-hole in that Philadelphia lineup also cast quite the shadow.

Tune in tomorrow for part two!