NL Outfielders in the Mock Dynasty Draft

For those of you stuck doing nothing at work, here’s a Christmas present. Rankings! Mock Draft! You’re welcome.

Then again, this is not really the mock, nor are they really rankings. So I’m kind of a dick. What we’ve done here is represent the National League outfielders that were taken in the RotoGraphs mock dynasty draft a few weeks back. We’ve got the round, pick, and overall pick number for each, and then we’ve broken them in some tiers for good measure.

In a pleasant surprise, it looks like our keeper tiers held up pretty good, with a few notable exceptions.

Matt Kemp 1.3 (3)
Justin Upton 1.9 (9)
Ryan Braun 2.1 (13)
Carlos Gonzalez 2.2 (14)
Andrew McCutchen 2.9 (21)
Mike Stanton 2.12 (24)
Bryce Harper 3.8 (32)
Jay Bruce 3.12 (36)

Nothing really to see here, just the cream of the crop. Maybe it’s a little early to pick Harper — after all Jay Bruce was a pretty tidy prospect coming up in the minor leagues once, too. And now he’s a grown man with grown man skills. How long will it take Harper to get to a .270+ average with 30+ home runs? That’s how long the Bruce pick will be better. But you know what… I love sweet sweet upside myself. It can be a siren song, though. Do you believe that Jayson Werth will play center and Harper will be up this year? And if so, what do you think he’ll do after showing meh results in Double-A?

P.S. I took Ryan Braun in the mock.

Matt Holliday 5.7 (55)
Drew Stubbs 7.3 (75)
Jason Heyward 7.4 (76)
Hunter Pence 7.7 (79)
Michael Bourn 7.9 (81)

I’m glad Matt Holliday was taken a couple rounds after Bruce so that it wouldn’t look self-serving when I made him the beginning of a lower tier. But I’ve talked enough about how he’s declining (oh one more thing — Pence’s Bill James projection is .292 with 25 and 10 SBs, Holliday’s is .307, 27 HR and 7 SB, so you’re much better off with the extra 25 picks there). And I’ve also talked about how I don’t love Drew Stubbs and his 30% strikeout rate. Let’s instead give some love for Jason Heyward here. He’s projected for .270, 21 HR and 14 SBs, but he doesn’t have a bad strikeout rate, hits the ball on the ground, and has power — I’ll take the over on that batting average. For a good amount of jelly beans.

Lance Berkman 7.11 (83)
Jayson Werth 8.7 (91)
Cameron Maybin 9.4 (100)
Carlos Beltran 9.11 (107)
Shane Victorino 10.8 (116)
Corey Hart 11.2 (122)
Logan Morrison 11.5 (125)
Dexter Fowler 12.6 (138)
Chris Young 15.4 (172)
Melky Cabrera 15.9 (177)
Andre Ethier 15.10 (178)
Domonic Brown 16.1 (181)

We’re being generous with the tiers here, but there’s something to this grouping. They all have decent upside this year, down to the last man (even if the Phillies keep saying he needs another year of seasoning). I will say that I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why Carson took Beltran over Victorino. He might out-homer Victorino by five next year, and he won’t steal 20+ bases. Victorino should have gone higher in my estimation, but that’s another thing I’ve talked about too much.

You could put a tier in ahead of Chris Young. It would make sense. There’s a 30-pick gap between Fowler and Young — which is a little weird actually, given the fact that Fowler hits for about ten points higher at best, but hasn’t shown any of the same power or speed over the last two years. And that last group (Young, Cabrera, Ethier and Brown) is not quite as good as the rest of the tier. But! They’d all make for good final outfielders in this five-outfielder setting, and they all have some easily reachable upside at least. This last tier is mostly role-players or longer shots.

Seth Smith 17.1 (193)
Jose Tabata 18.8 (212)
David DeJesus 19.3 (219)
Lucas Duda 19.12 (228)
Yonder Alonso 20.5 (233)
J.D. Martinez 20.12 (240)
Allen Craig 21.1 (241)
Angel Pagan 21.3 (243)
Carlos Lee 22.2 (254)
Jason Kubel 25.8 (296)
Jason Bay 27.10 (322 out of 324)

DeJesus is out of place here. Maybe the power grows a little away from Oakland, but I doubt he hits enough homers or steals enough bases to make his batting average a real boon. He’s more of a scoresheet type of play. Smith, Kubel, Lee and Bay are your role players. They aren’t likely to win you a league without some really fortuitous bounces. But they work.

I’d take most of the young guys in this tier over any of them, though. Even if Tabata has no power and a low stolen base ceiling, Martinez’ power upside is unclear, Duda is a first baseman running around with outfielder power, Craig has a busted knee and Pagan isn’t really young any more. Still, none of them is Carlos Lee. (That’s a good thing.)