On the back end of the top 25 outfielders last year, there’s a trio of young outfielders that found success with very different approaches. Adam Duvall just hit the crap out of the ball. Gregory Polanco was a five-tooler with good patience and contact. Stephen Piscotty was somewhere in between. We all have our favorites when it comes to player types, but let’s be concrete about these things. Let’s filter the players based on a few key statistics and find historical comps that can help us better understand the futures for our three relative youngsters.

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The easiest way to build a winning roster is to draft undervalued players. These aren’t upside or breakout targets, they’re simply guys who are going much later in the draft than their projections merit. When it comes to high quality leagues, our markets are usually pretty efficient. We don’t just leave predictably good players to sit around in the draft. However, here are three guys we selected too late.

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In fantasy baseball we talk a lot about five-category players or performances but we don’t usually define what that actually means. In its most liberal application, the term is a shorthand for a productive player whose worst performance in any one category is still palatable. Sometimes we’ll talk about someone with sneaky five-category potential when describing breadth of upside.

I suspect that most use the term when describing players who provide a positive value in all five standard roto categories. But in most cases, we use the descriptor when “power-speed threat” might be more appropriate. Or that given the dichotomous relationship between the two skills, we lower our standards in one category because a player stands out in the other. If we use the most literal definition, that a five-category player provides at least positive contributions across all five categories, we’re really talking about just seven players, six of whom were drafted in first five rounds.

Let’s continue with the outfielder Steamer and I reviews by checking in on an amusing player — Yasiel Puig. I was significantly more bearish on Puig than Steamer was, and while we know now that Puig has continued his offensive slide, let’s dive into exactly what we expected versus how he actually performed.

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Absent all other information, we should always expect a player to be worse than the previous year. A.J. Pollock won’t be worse in 2017 by virtue of missing nearly all of 2016. That’s practically a guarantee. But what should we actually expect of him?

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Today, I start my reviews of my Steamer and I series that happened to cover mainly outfielders (not by design). The series compared my Pod Projection to the Steamer projection, as I discussed the players I was either significantly more bullish or bearish on compared to the system. We start with Mike Trout, who I was far more bearish on than Steamer. It was an interesting exercise for me since I had no idea I was in that position to begin with. Diving it to determine why was an enlightening activity.

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Last offseason, Jeff Sullivan noted the dramatic changes George Springer made to his contact and pull rates and how that transformation appeared to make the Astros’ right fielder a safer bet going forward. He also noted that, given the inconsistency between the results of Springer’s first two years in the majors, it was still hard to know what to expect in Season No. 3.

The suspense is over. The 2016 season is in the books, yet it’s not entirely clear what sort of performer Springer will be in 2017. We can certainly look more confidently to Springer to provide plenty of plate appearances. Not only did he serve ably as the Astros’ leadoff hitter for most of the season, but unlike in his first two seasons, Springer stayed healthy, appearing in all 162 games and starting all but one.

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Imagine your prototypical outfielder. What does he look like? What did he look like in 2010? The numbers say he’s changed a bit. Where he might have been Jermaine Dye or a late-career Moises Alou back then, today’s outfielder looks a little bit more like Ian Desmond or Tyler Naquin. That probably has ramifications on what you expect, generally, from your outfield.

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This is the sixth edition of a continuing series. If you missed the previous rounds, catchers, first basemen, second basemen, third basemen, and shortstops can be found via the links. Yesterday, we evaluated what outfielders did in 2016. Today, we’ll take a first stab at ranking them for 2017.

As a reminder, these rankings represent my first reactions rather than a truly rigorous approach. I’ve used an absolutely objective technique called mental math to compile the lists. I’m assuming a standard 5×5 format.

The purpose of this exercise is two-fold: to get an early start on 2017 rankings and to crowdsource missing or misranked players. That’s where you come in. Let your thoughts and feelings be known in the comments. As we’ve done in previous editions, we’ll break this into digestible chunks.

Outfield is a very large position. I’ll be focusing written analysis on the players who most interest me. There’s a very high likelihood some players have slipped through the cracks – either because I only ranked them at another position or missed them entirely.

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It’s outfield week! Let’s begin by recapping how my rankings compared to the consensus by reviewing my outfield Pod’s Picks and Pans.

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