“Must…hit…publish…before nine more transactions force more revisions.” We have no time for chit-chat.
Okay, a little chit-chat. I left the high-priced guys behind for analysis and mostly focused on pockets for particular categorical values, sticking to players taken in the latter parts of drafts. If you’re just joining us, here are the ranks for first base, third base, and catcher. Read the rest of this entry »
As we head into primetime drafting season, I will be rereleasing my positional ranks. Here are my current ranks for the outfield position for 2022, my third of the offseason. I will post updates as things change with signings, injuries, or news in Major League Baseball. On the Sleeper and the Bust Patreon, you can see the rankings updated live.
You can review my ranks for other positions here: https://fantasy.fangraphs.com/category/rankings/
The Outfield Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.
Guest: Jeff Erickson
Strategy Section
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With drafts beginning to ramp up, it is important to monitor where players are being drafted on a regular basis. Throughout draft season, I will be doing that work for you with regular updates on the Average Draft Position on NFBC up until Opening Day. You can find all the pieces in this series here.
Outfield is a lot deeper than I expected when I started building this list. Especially when you factor in all the platoon bats. However, I think filling up 810 games across the five OF positions will be more challenging than people think. A lot of players on this list are good for 100 games or less, even before accounting for injuries, underperformance, etc.
1/30/22
The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to our Patreon!!
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No one doesn’t want Yordan Alvarez. He’ll be a low-third or high-fourth rounder in 2022 redraft leagues. This isn’t a binary buy-sell article on Alvarez in that we all know he’s good. But do we know how good he is?
| Season | Age | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | xSLG | ISO | wOBA | xwOBA | wRC+ | Barrel% | HH% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 22 | 369 | .313 | .412 | .655 | .588 | .342 | .432 | .405 | 176 | 16.30% | 48.40% |
| 2020 | 23 | 9 | .250 | .333 | .625 | .450 | .375 | .399 | .358 | 158 | 0.00% | 71.40% |
| 2021 | 24 | 598 | .277 | .346 | .531 | .570 | .253 | .369 | .389 | 138 | 15.90% | 54.20% |
| Total | 976 | .290 | .371 | .577 | .287 | .393 | 153 | 15.90% | 52.30% |
Putting Alvarez’ first 976 PAs into context against other players with 750-plus PAs since 2019:
His SLG% ranks third, behind only Mike Trout and Fernando Tatis Jr. His wRC+ is tied for third. His wOBA ranks sixth. And he ranks seventh among hitters in barrel rate with 600-plus batted ball events.
Alvarez is somewhere in the top-ten among real-life hitters in MLB and will likely be toward the bottom of the top-20 among hitters in ADP. Houston is probably gonna keep getting on base a ton, with or without Carlos Correa, so the hitting in the middle of that order is gonna keep showing a profit. The profit that should make up for virtually no expected steals.
Alvarez has a history of injury, but I don’t really care about 25-year-old DH who just played a full season. Personally, I don’t even equate it.
His walk rate could be higher and strikeout rate is about fine. The team coaches contact, so there is room for growth on both ends. Even if the strikeout rate falls without the wall rate rising, we see in Alvarez’ elite barrel rate that contact is good for our purposes.
Alvarez’ .335 BABIP is really high, but I don’t really give a crap about that because he pulverizes the ball on contact so often. High BABIPs are usually ripe with good fortune, but there is such thing as a high quantity of high-quality contact. I’d bank more on his .369 wOBA in 2021 inches up closer to his .389 xwOBA because his quality of contact is so pure. And the super-raw, extremely early returns are agreeing with me out of the gate.
ATC has Alvarez 2022-projected wOBA at .385. THE BAT X at .382 and Steamer at .379.
Alvarez’ .570 xSLG% was far great than his .529 SLG%. ATC has him projected early at .557 for 2022, THE BAT X has .551, and the more conservative Steamer still has him boosted to .546 — .313-projected BABIP be damned.
Factoring in the bats around Alvarez boosting his run production — Jose Altuve the Everyman, a healthy Alex Bregman, the ageless Yuli Gurriel, the high power of Kyle Tucker, and the perpetual hitting efficiency of Michael Brantley — we should be projecting Alvarez as a top-12 fantasy hitter in redrafts and even higher in dynasty and keeper formats. He’s only turning 25 this season and without defense for fantasy or a speed-dependency on the table, he should age very well.
2021 is over and we turn the page to 2022. Here are my current ranks for the outfield position for 2022, my second of the offseason. I will post updates as things change with signings, injuries, or news in Major League Baseball. On the Sleeper and the Bust Patreon, you can see the rankings updated live and notes for each player will be added this week.
You can review my ranks for other positions here: https://fantasy.fangraphs.com/category/rankings/
The first run of ranking is about to done and then I’ll roll out the update at each position with comments added. I’m still reluctant to do a closer ranking at this point, but I know I have to bite the bullet and give y’all something. It is just such a mess at this point. Anyway, that’s later Paul’s problem. Today, it is time for the outfield. It is a really interesting class of outfielders with some really fun pockets of talent going in the mid-to-late rounds of drafts. If you have been reading my Roster Reviews, you will see some Bold Predictions tied to outfielders as I have definitely started to zero on some key guys in my early drafts.
These are for 5×5 15-teamers with a 20-game eligibility threshold.
Let’s discuss in the comments!
With drafts beginning to ramp up, it is important to monitor where players are being drafted on a regular basis. Throughout draft season, I will be doing that work for you with regular updates on the Average Draft Position on NFBC up until Opening Day. You can find all the pieces in this series here. Read the rest of this entry »