Four Outfielders: Simpson, Adell, Rafaela, & Kwan
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Previous Outfield Reviews
I’m examining outfielders starting around 150 ADP. A few guys have moved, so a few went early in recent drafts.
Chandler Simpson (143 ADP)
Simpson hits the ball on the ground and runs immediately to first base. And then steals multiple bases. That’s it. Even with his speed, he only had 15 doubles and three triples last season.
In Roto, no one is more league-specific than Simpson. He’s great at stealing bases (63 total last year) and providing a decent batting average (.295 AVG). But he’s a negative contributor in home runs (0) and RBI (26). Depending on where he bats in the lineup, he could be a source of Runs.
The 0 HR is going to be hard to make up. Even in Billy Hamilton’s heyday, he averaged 4 HR per season. A fantasy team is going to have to be stacked with power to take a complete zero. I can’t find any batted ball intent or statement that he wants to hit homers. If he ever hits one, it’ll be an inside-the-parker.
Another issue with Simpson is that he’s barely a replacement-level player. After being in the majors for just over a month, he was demoted back to AAA after posting a .632 OPS. When he returned in June, he had a .687 OPS over the rest of the season.
I think it would be interesting to throw him out early in an auction when teams don’t know if they need speed or not. He could be added cheaply and be a bench streamer.
Final Take: Only a narrow roto build will fully utilize Chandler Simpson’s skills. He does feel like a corrective action if a team misses on steals and needs to catch up.
Jo Adell (145 ADP)
In 2025, the 26-year-old Adell posted a career-high 37 HR with 17% Barrel%. The home runs seem to be in line with his 36.4 xHR from Baseball Savant. The reason for the improvement started with a career-best contact (74% Contact%) and power (50% HardHit%, 17% Barrel%, and 91.7 mph avgEV) metrics. He was making more solid contact with just a bit more bat speed. My batted ball comps had him hitting between 25 HR and 33 HR. His Steamer600 puts him at 34 HR. I’d not be surprised to see some downward homerun regression.
The higher Contact% helped boost his .207 AVG from the previous two seasons to a .236 AVG this past year. I could see it going a bit higher if he hit his career .272 BABIP. After running wild with the other Angels in 2024, his steals dropped from 15 SB to 5 SB. Projections have his stolen bases near 10. I’d back off those to mid single digits.
Over the last five regular seasons, Adell has gone over 575 PA once (2025), with the next highest being 451 PA (2024). Playing time could be a concern.
Final Take: Jo Adell may have improved his plate discipline enough to be a consistent home run threat.
Ceddanne Rafaela (153 ADP)
In his first two seasons, Rafaela’s stats have been consistent.
Season: PA, AVG, HR, SB
2024: 571, .246, 15, 19
2025: 587, .249, 16, 20
Hidden in the consistency was a 20-point drop in BABIP that hid some major improvements. His Contact% went from 69.6% to 75.4%. Strikeout rate from 26% to 20%. Walk rate from 3% to 5%. Average Exit Velocity from 86.6 mph to 88.3 mph. And he set a new max Exit Velocity at 112 mph.
When I run my batted ball comps, he projected for a .640 OPS and 17 HR in 2024. The same system had him with a .715 OPS and 19 HR in 2025.
Part of his struggles might have been from a hit-by-pitch on August 3rd. Over the next month, he posted a .479 OPS but finished the season with an .832 OPS.
His elite defense should keep him on the field, especially since he struggles against left-handed pitching (career .642 OPS vs LHP, .701 OPS vs RHP).
One huge upside for him could be moving up in the lineup. He started a combined 106 games while hitting either 8th or 9th. Over the last week or so, he moved up to batting between fourth and seventh.
Final Take: While his surface stats don’t show it, Ceddanne Rafaela took a major step forward in 2025.
Steven Kwan (166 ADP)
I can’t find any reason to adjust Kwan’s previous production and projection from 12 HR, 20 SB, and a .280 AVG. He’s settled into who he is as a batter.
Final Take: Steven Kwan is a consistent source of batting average and steals with at least double-digit home runs.
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.
You don’t want to draft Simpson, you want to trade for him.
Let’s be serious – Simpson is more than just “decent” in batting average. A .295 average would have tied for 9th among qualified hitters. I agree he’s hard to roster because of how much he hurts in HR and RBI, but he’s gonna be a positive in BA.
Steamer gives him the 8th best projected BA in baseball
Agree with the Adell analysis, but it feels like you’re underselling him a bit. That Steamer600 projection for 34 homers is 7th in baseball between Schwarber and Soto. His defense isn’t great, but his playing time should be pretty secure on an Angels team without much depth. And he’s going near pick 150. Also he had a hip injury last year so it will be interesting to see if the stolen base attempts rebound at all.
It took Kwan 693 PA to hit 11 HR last year. He had 4 HR by April 20th, then 7 the rest of the way. He had a triple that would’ve gone out in 2 parks, a double that would’ve gone out in 4 parks, and a double that would’ve gone out in 10 parks.
Offset by a HR that would’ve only gone out in 2 parks, one that only goes out in 11 parks, and 1 that only goes out in 12 parks. His average bat speed was 63.7 MPH. He was in the 1st percentile for both bat speed and hard hit rate. He ohly had 11 barrels all season, and using the crude HR/barrel, he’d round up to 6 expected HR. His expected SLG% was .363 vs. an actual of .374 (FWIW, I think statcast xSLG% kind of misses on him because he has a knack for pulling groundball doubles down the line and the defense can’t really play him to pull so those aren’t going away IMO.)
He did have 3 HR that go out in 28 parks to go along with his 2 that would’ve been gone in all 30 parks.
But all that said, why would he be good for “at least double-digit home runs”?
Kwan isn’t Simpson, and he’s not a zero, but I think it’s kind of a miss to say he’s a bankable double digit HR guy. “At least double-digit” sounds like a guy who has a 15-18 HR ceiling at least, and Kwan hasn’t shown that. He’s proven he can pile up the PA which helps, but that isn’t getting him there by itself anyway – he had 717 PA in 2023 with 5 HR and basically the same batted ball quality – avg EV of 86.0 vs. 86.2, max EV of 105.2 vs. 104.2, hard hit of 18.8% vs. 19.3%, xSLG of .358 vs. .363..
He seems more like a bankable 6 to 8 HR guy IMO.
I love Kwan BTW, and think he’s got some .300 seasons ahead of him yet because he’s elite at squaring up the ball. But it’s squaring up the ball with a sub 64 MPH swing, and he stated he was trying to do more damage, so I’m not sure there is much more power projection there. Still, I love him, I just think if you’re building a team, you’re best off penciling him in for 6-8 HR and anything more is gravy.