NL Outfield Tiered Rankings: June
NL OF Tiers: May
NL OF Tiers: Preseason
I love Bob’s Burgers. That love stems from a love of H. Jon Benjamin, which stems from a love of Home Movies. However, I do not find Archer all that funny. It is the lesser show, and that’s that.
I’m sorting the tiers by secondary characters in Bob’s. It’d be too easy to rank Bob’s family. Or would it? Should I? No, I won’t. I’ll stick to the game plan.
Aside from the top tier, the rest of the hitters are ranked loosely in their respective tiers. An argument could be made for all of them to move up or down a couple of spots.
Teddy
Carlos Gomez
Giancarlo Stanton
Bryce Harper
Andrew McCutchen
So here he is. Harper, all of 22 years old and on pace for about a billion everythings. Among all the absurd things he has accomplished thus far, his walk rate might actually take the top honor. Despite everything, I’m still skeptical of his ability to play through a full season unscathed. He just plays so hard. The winds shift when he swings. Perhaps he deserves the No.-1 spot; I will gladly let him prove me wrong. Also, McCutchen’s knees may prevent him from being the perennial first-rounder he used to be. I know he busted his slump, but still, is anyone else other than me underwhelmed? R.I.P. Cutch’s stolen bases.
Ron
Justin Upton
Ryan Braun
Billy Hamilton
Joc Pederson
A.J. Pollock
Dexter Fowler
Starling Marte
Charlie Blackmon
Yasiel Puig
Corey Dickerson
Some -tons, some -sons, a -mon. Mostly dual-threat guys. Braun has reestablished himself as a credible offensive threat once more, and I’ve heard hardly a peep about PEDs (until, uh, now, I guess), so that’s nice. Hamilton is always tough to rank; Harper’s walk rate almost constitutes the entirety of Hamilton’s on-base percentage. The steals are nice, but he is truly a one-trick pony. Perhaps the most surprising name on the list is Fowler’s: he’s running again, and the power display appears to be legitimate — at least, my xISO equation thinks so.
Jocelyn
Hunter Pence
Cameron Maybin
Jason Heyward
Gregory Polanco
Matt Holliday
Denard Span
Ender Inciarte
Jay Bruce
Curtis Granderson
Chris Coghlan
Wil Myers
Michael Taylor
You could arguably merge this tier with the one above. We’re talking more dual-threat guys here, albeit at slightly lesser degrees. Is Granderson the new Bruce, or vice versa? Pence is a bit enigmatic coming off his DL stint, but he has typically proven himself a worthy fantasy commodity. His rank next month ought to be a better reflection of his talent.
Otherwise, there are really no glaring oddities in the plate discipline department (a skill set that’s important to me) — that is, except for Taylor and his astronomical 39.7-percent strikeout rate. I’m just such a sucker for his tools. Oh, and another surprising name: Maybin is back, my friends, albeit in a largely different form than you may have once remembered him. Josh Shepardson and I discussed him here and here.
Regular-Sized Rudy
Khris Davis
Marcell Ozuna
Alex Guerrero
Ben Revere
Nori Aoki
David Peralta
Jorge Soler
Matt Kemp
Carlos Gonzalez
Michael Cuddyer
Andre Ethier
I love Guerrero as much as the next guy — he quickly transformed his name from obscure to trendy — but let’s not get carried away with his home run rate. More one-trick ponies here in the form of cheap speed and power. Then there’s Soler, Kemp and CarGo. So, so disappointing. If you’re in a keeper or dynasty league, I think you have to stick with Soler, but I wouldn’t blame you for cutting bait in a redraft league. His bat speed and line drive stroke can sustain a batting average on balls in play (BABIP) in the .350-.360 range, but he’s not hitting many fly balls (and let’s not discuss the strikeouts, yeah?). Kemp and CarGo have perhaps hit the proverbial wall; xISO thinks the former may be getting shafted a bit, but the latter, relative to his formerly glorious self, is a travesty.
Lance the turkey
Yasmany Tomas
Odubel Herrera
Nick Markakis
Randal Grichuk
Christian Yelich
Angel Pagan
Justin Maxwell
Juan Lagares
Ichiro Suzuki
Gregor Blanco
Jon Jay
Scott Van Slyke
Michael Morse
Tomas may deserve more respect. He’s actually utilizing all fields rather than hitting for power, all while swiping a base here and there. However, he hasn’t proven himself particularly valuable yet, so my expectations remain tempered. Pour one out for Yelich’s untapped potential. You’re looking at the scrap heap now. Carl Crawford booked his annual vacation to the 60-day DL Monday, leaving room for your favorite underappreciated Dodgers platoon hitters and suddenly not-bloated contracts.
Notes:
- FanGraphs does not list Ryan Zimmerman and Josh Harrison as outfielders on its leaderboards, so I have followed suit.
- Where’s Mark Trumbo?! He’s in Seattle, ya dingus!
- As always, please remind me how dumb I am or if I missed anyone!
I really think you need to re-think that Carlos Gomez #1 overall ranking. The projection systems have Harper, Stanton and McCutchen blowing Gomez out the water by RoS wOBA and wRC+, and ZiPS has him at the 13th best wOBA moving forward. Those other three guys – plus arguably Upton and Braun – have more potent bats, and Upton and Braun are running as much, if not more. If your argument against any of the others is health, that’s funny, considering that Gomez is the only one in the group to have actually spent time on the DL in 2015.
too high: Michael Taylor, Coghlan
too low: Soler, Cargo, Guerrero, Yelich
Would like to know your thoughts on Dickerson. I’m worried it’s going be a while til he returns the the foot issue may never go away.
When would you expect him to be back and what would your guess be as far as Avg. And HR?
Part of the reason I ranked him so highly is I thought I read somewhere yesterday that he was making good progress and on his way back. But it might have just been some fluff because I see elsewhere there’s no timetable for a return. So unfortunately, I’m not sure. I probably over-ranked him.
First – Neither Bob’s Burgers nor Archer is a lesser show. Both are full of enjoyable.
Second – While I would argue that Upton should be in the top tier with the rest of those fellas (#4 overall in Yahoo right now), I’m plenty contented to know that my LF/CF/RF/UTIL in my keeper league is currently filled with Upton/Gomez/Braun/Pederson.
I tried watching Bob’s. What am I missing? I only gave it one episode, but I didn’t last the whole episode. Is there a great one I should start with? I really wanted to like it, but it just didn’t click.
Gomez scares me. Not much to like there. The others are gonna look nice together.
I actually started and stopped watching about three separate times before I got into it. I think the first half of the first season or so is pretty scripted; the show really shines when the characters ad-lib.
Is Yelich drop-able in 12-team redraft leagues?
I dropped him yesterday after having him on the bench for some time. So far I’m happy with that Joey Gallo fella I picked up for him.
I dropped him straight up for Burns. Figured whatever power I was losing with Yelich I was gaining in speed with Burns.
Would ANY Justin Upton owner trade him for Carlos Gomez? Justin Upton deserves more love. He has a reasonable shot at 100/35/100/30/.350(OBP)-season.
I am a Gomez owner, and I would not sell him for Upton
I mean, if you want to lose, that’s cool.
I would really like to hear justification for ranking Gomez over Upton.
Aside from slightly lower walk and hard-hit rates, he’s essentially the same guy he has been since he broke out. His 15/20/.270 line will be plenty valuable RoS.
Although I earnestly believe now that Upton above Gomez and maybe everyone else is probably the right call. Even after scouring his player page last night, it didn’t faze me just how well he was playing. I concede.
it pains me to drop soler but in my 12 team essentially non-keeper redraft league i think its about time. tho im sure if i do he’ll turn it around after his DL stint
I kept Soler coming into this year (10 keepers, 12 teams). I really hope he does pick it up the rest of the way, because I don’t want to have to seriously think about possibly letting him go at the end of the year.
Archer is an American Treasure, sir.
Archer is the far superior show.
And get off Cutch’s back – I think his .353/.431/.595 line since May 1st and his “I’m Andrew McCutchen” speech is more than enough to be elite.
Agree wholeheartedly. Archer might be the best sitcom on television right now. Bob’s doesn’t hold s candle to it now. Also, not sure why Cutch’s knees are mentioned at all.
Do you see Fowler’s average rebounding at all? The power/speed combo has been really nice, but his poor batting average has weighed down his value where it could be. If he can bump up his average to the .250 range, he would be even more valuable.
Also, between Maybin and Billy Burns, who do you think proves to be more valuable the ROS?
I think Fowler’s BA will jump up a few ticks. Always been a higher BABIP guy — which doesn’t guarantee a high BABIP now, but his batted ball profile also doesn’t exhibit any glaring weaknesses.
Probably Maybin.
far too low: regular sized rudy
Would like to hear your thoughts/explanation for the Holliday ranking. I was hoping he belonged one tier higher than where you have him (even if he’d be at the bottom of that tier). His power typically jumps during the summer months/2nd half (or at least the last 2 years it has), and there’s nothing in his profile that seems really different than his career numbers (as far as I can tell). Even if he’s now just a 20 HR guy rather than 25-30, his avg seems it will rebound to career rates (as opposed to last year’s), and that should still make him a pretty solid value, and certainly not someone I could imagine being in the same tier as most of the other guys in his tier.
And I should add you yourself are the one who touted him so highly in the pre-season for this very reason.
Aaaand by your xISO metric he’s deserved moderately better in the power department, and an ISO in line with his first half from last year.
I love Holliday. Always have, always will. The BABIP isn’t sustainable long-term, although all the power to him if he can do it for 600 PAs.
I think the xISO is fueled primarily by gap power. His FB% and Pull% are both career-lows and his Hard% is close behind. I would be happy if he cracked even 15 homers this year, but I’m not getting my hopes up.
I don’t have a problem with the Holliday ranking, but I am confused as to how his teammate Heyward is in the same tier and ahead of him to boot. Heyward’s been somewhat disappointing on offense (although his average has been rising recently), and he’s starting to lose playing time to Grichuk in a 3-man rotation for CF and RF.
Hmmm. So how bad is G Parra?
Oops! Thanks for the catch. Probably not much better than the rest of the “Lance the turkey” tier. I would rather take a risk on Tomas first.
I’m comfortable with arguing that Joc Pederson belongs squarely situated at the top of Tier 1. Among all MLB outfielders, only Bryce Harper’s insane Babe ruth mixed with ted Williams impression to start the year has been more impressive to me. .267/.393/.606? an OPS that rounds to 1.000, an ISO (.339) that would win a batting title most years, He’s on pace to hit 40 homeruns, his walk rate is nearly 16% and his batted ball profile looks a lot like the trout/puig/Springer outlier skillset. a Hard Hit % of 42.4 is both elite among professional hitters, and as we have seen, tends to be a repeatable skill. This dude is a beast. I think he’s exceeded everyone’s wildest expectations. Hes looking more like George Springer 2.0, or Prime Gary Sheffield than the 3-war player the projections had him at.
any concern that gomez has fallen off a bit and that steamer’s continued pessissm is true? the babip/quality of contact falls off with age, plus the continuing decline in steals, and all the sudden he’s not a top threat anymore.
His peripherals are largely unchanged, save for fewer hard-hit balls. I think it’s evident I’m in the optimistic minority. I still think he can pull off 20/25/.270. Steals aren’t evenly distributed throughout a season, so his current 20ish pace could be too slow or too fast. Who knows.
I’m not sure how the debate turned into Gomez vs Upton, even though Upton is clearly in line for a much stronger year. what about Gomez being #1 when he hasn’t done much of anything to date for the whole season? In my view he belongs somewhere down around Starling Marte in the 2nd tier.
He’s still on pace for roughly 20 HR and SB apiece per 600 PAs. The injury didn’t help, but I think his RoS projection (which is what my rankings consider) of 15 HR, 15-20 SB, .270 is up there with the best of them.
Who doesn’t like Archer?! Classic Chamberlain.
How is Puig in the second tier when he’s currently on the DL? He’ll have to hit like an MVP candidate when he returns to justify that ranking, and I don’t see that happening this early in his career while coming off an injury.
Rest of season
Yeah, what about it? Puig is going to be missing a significant chunk of the rest of the season, which will be tough to make up for in the four counting categories.