Welcome to the final episode of Fantasy Baseball State of the Union Address. We’ve been looking back to see if this “new” version of our beloved game had any meaningful impact on fantasy. Of course, there are things you can already imagine, like more stolen bases or better batting average without a shift, but what does that mean for each position? Did it create more value in certain spots? How will that impact the draft strategy for 2024? These are the questions I will try to answer in this “State of the Fantasy Baseball Union” series I have a question.
You can see my first base inspection here and check out Here is the breakdown of my doubles. and shortstop here and again third base here And here’s the catcher. Today we will focus on the outfield. I broke it down by player who accumulated 200 at-bats both this season and in 2022, and whether there is a meaningful change in the standard 5×5 offensive categories (batting average, home runs, RBIs, RBIs, stolen bases). I looked into it. I then tried to dig into what that change was, why it happened, and what are the chances of seeing that change again.
Of course, I’m not going to list all of these names. Because it’s long and boring and no one wants to read it. What we would like to point out is that almost 100 outfielders with 200 or more at-bats have a batting average of over .240. Additionally, all positions saw significant increases from last year, likely due to the shift ban. As a result, we think we need to have a higher batting average benchmark, and we want to develop a plan to acquire some really strong batting assets to meet that higher benchmark.
If you want to know the true batting average of an outfielder, there are only three outfielders who hit over .300 this year: Ronald Acuña Jr., Cody Bellinger, and Mookie Betts. Five more outfielders batted above .290: Nolan Jones, Jalen Duran, Michael Harris II, Yordan Alvarez and Josh Lowe.
Looking at some of these names, you can also see why there’s going to be a big boom in many of these outfield categories due to the influx of talented young players like Lowe, Jones, and Duran. It really influenced me. Corbin Carroll, who is batting .285, would be another talented young player on this list, as would Riley Greene, who is batting .288, and many others.
The outfield is another position that has seen a huge boom in power production. In fact, the number of outfielders who hit 20 or more home runs this year is almost twice as many as in 2022.
Additionally, we are beginning to see many repeat players with stable batting averages and 20 or more home runs. If you want to see players who hit 20 or more home runs and hit .270 or higher, Acuña, Betts, Bellinger, Alvarez, Carroll, Juan Soto, Julio Rodriguez, Nick Castellanos, Kyle Tucker, and Brandon Nimmo. It shows. , Spencer Steer, Chas McCormick.
Looking at who the real power assets were, there were 10 outfielders who hit 30 or more home runs this year: Acuña, Betts, Alvarez, Soto, Rodriguez, Kyle Schwarber, Adriz Garcia, and Luis Garcia. Robert Jr., Aaron Judge, Brent Rooker. These are names you’ll want to keep an eye on, especially if you’re targeting power generation.
While there isn’t as much value in the top tier of RBIs as other categories, we still see outfielders offering more options than other positions. This makes sense because of the large number of outfielders.
We also continue to see names that have appeared on all three lists thus far: Betts, Acuña, Bellinger, Alvarez, Rodriguez, Carroll, Lowe, Tucker, McCormick, Steer, Castellanos, Robert Jr., Judge; lane thomas.
We also see players who may have been on the lower end of their batting average this year, but have provided great value with home runs and RBIs to make up for it: Adriz Garcia, Anthony Santander, Teoscar Hernandez, Randy Arozarena, Fernando Tatis Jr., and Kyle Schwarber only batted .197 that year, which is really excruciating when you’re saying batting averages are up significantly across the league.
It’s a gradual rise here, but nothing too sudden. The runs were up across the board and back to levels seen in 2019 and 2020, so it makes sense to see a slight bump here, but this shouldn’t semantically change draft strategy. there is no. It’s always been a good idea to get at least one top-of-the-line outfielder in the draft, and that hasn’t changed.
There are many of the same names among the league leaders at this position: Acuña, Betts, Carroll, Schwarber, Garcia, Rodriguez, Tucker, Soto, Bellinger, Arozarena, Tatis Jr., Robert Jr., Nimmo. Christian Yelich, Lane Thomas again, and Steven Kwan will also be there.
There are also power-first middle-order hitters like Aaron Judge and Yordan Alvarez who push themselves in groups.
Some interesting names that barely made it through the other categories and also appear here are George Springer (.258 batting average, 21 home runs, 72 RBIs, 87 RBIs) and Ian Happ (.248 batting average, 21 home runs, 84 RBIs, 86 RBIs) ), I’m Brian. Reynolds (.263 batting average, 24 home runs, 84 RBIs, 85 RBIs) and James Outman (.248 batting average, 23 home runs, 70 RBIs, 86 RBIs). This is just one way to suggest that there are quite a few hitters in the five categories among outfielders, if you’re just looking for consistent but exceptional contributions in either category.
Yeah, that’s a pretty big jump. In 2023, the number of outfielders stealing bases will be 15, more than double the number in 2022. This is not surprising. The traditional outfield is populated by some of the faster players on the field, and the new stolen base rules certainly helped the faster players put that speed to good use.
However, the big takeaway here is that with so many outfielders now contributing meaningfully in stolen bases, there’s no need to draft speed-first players too high to secure speed. Estury Ruiz may be the only true speed-only player drafted by a fast team, but he had 67 stolen bases this year, so we’re talking about one of the top stolen base assets in the league. But even he falls lower than expected in the draft because he’s useless elsewhere.
It could also hurt the fantasy value of guys here like Jake McCarthy, Ji-Hwan Bae, Brenton Doyle, Myles Straw, and Harrison Bader. Getting over 20 steals from them would be great, but 21 steals from Jake Fraley, 20 steals from Nolan Jones, 20 steals from Cody Bellinger, 16 steals from James Outman, or 15 from Spencer Steer. Once you get a steal, it’s no longer worth as much. Other categories have more production.
Among the stolen base leaders, we see many of the same names again: Acuña, Carroll, Rodriguez, Tucker, Tatis Jr., and Yelich. But Josh Lowe and Jazz Chisholm Jr., who had 22 stolen bases in just 97 games, will also be back.
Now that there are so many ways to use outfield draft picks to add speed, those “rabbits” seem like a thing of the past.
Key points and ranking
There has always been a ton of top-level fantasy talent in the outfield, and nothing has changed in that regard. Speed and power have improved across the board to provide a strong list of outfielders even after the top tier leaves. However, increased production on the offensive line across the league means that category targets for fantasy managers are on the rise, indicating that outfield depth is becoming thinner quickly.
Sure, there are plenty of outfielders who can steal bases, hit home runs, and score runs that are drafted in later rounds, but now they need more offensive production to keep them. Those players aren’t worth that much. The best strategy is to make sure to target solid outfielders early on so you can take advantage of solid production at that position and not have to rely too heavily on the one or two categories of hitters left behind. I feel like it’s something to do.
So who are the current top 20 outfielders in 2024?