Early ADP Analysis: Outfield
Dave Shovein breaks down early NFBC average draft position (ADP) data in the outfield to give fantasy managers an edge heading into next season.
Even for the most casual fantasy drafters, entering a draft without any type of plan at all is a sure recipe for disaster. One of the most important tools at the disposal of any fantasy manager is average draft position. It’s the data that gives everyone insight into the going rate for each player in fantasy drafts.
ADP isn’t a static tool though; it evolves over time. It will show us trends, whether a player is moving up or down in the rankings. It also gives us insight into the maximum and minimum picks made for every player. Using this data should be critical in developing your plan of attack for your next fantasy draft.
Every week in this series I’ll take an early look at how ADP is shaping up at each position. I’ll attempt to highlight where the tiers fall at each position, areas of the draft that you may want to target the position and players that I may be avoiding at their current draft cost.
If you haven’t checked it out yet, we have already gone through the entire infield – the catcher preview that was posted five weeks ago now, the first base preview from four weeks ago, the second base preview from three weeks ago, the third base preview from two weeks ago and the shortstop position last week.
Full disclosure, nearly all my fantasy endeavors are done at the NFBC where both their 12-team and 15-team formats utilize rosters that start 23 players (14 hitters, 9 pitchers). That includes two catchers. The analysis will be viewed primarily through that lens but there should be plenty of insights that can be taken away to other formats as well.
On to the outfield. Buckle up, there’s a lot to get to.
Here’s a look at how ADP is shaping up at the position as of now. For this exercise, I’m looking at the data from NFBC Draft Champions leagues (15-team, 50 rounds) from the last two weeks. As we get closer to the season and drafts become more prevalent, I’ll start to shrink that window a bit to make sure we’re looking at the most accurate and up-to-date information.
This time around we’re looking at the top 135 options at the position by current ADP, trying to go as deep into the player pool as we did at all the infield spots.
In the leagues that I play in, you must go deep into the pool here because every team starts five outfielders and more than that are rostered, especially when you factor in that many of them qualify at other positions and could be starting there for fantasy purposes.
The top of the pool at the position is where you’ll find your five-category studs. Well, at least most of them will give you five, some will give you 4.5 and Yordan Alvarez is more of a straight four category type of guy.
There are seven outfielders currently going in the first round of 15-team leagues. Seven. That means that if you’re picking at the end of the draft, you may not even have a shot at any of Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, Kyle Tucker, Corbin Carroll, Fernando Tatis Jr., Mookie Betts or Julio Rodríguez.
You’ve then got another six options going in the second round on average in Jackson Chourio, Yordan Alvarez, Jarren Duran, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Jackson Merrill and Ronald Acuna Jr. Even if we’re assuming that Betts and Chisholm are going to be started in the infield by fantasy managers, that’s still most of the league that has at least one outfielder through the first two rounds. There’s a common misconception that the outfield is so deep that you can afford to wait on the position – and in formats that only start three of them that’s true. If you’re starting five in a deeper league though, you need to jump in the pond much earlier.
After Acuna, we see a bit of a drop, with Michael Harris II, Oneil Cruz, Wyatt Langford and James Wood all going between picks 37 and 54, on average. There’s another drop after that down to the trio of Teoscar Hernández, Lawrence Butler and Brenton Doyle between picks 65 and 75. That’s 20 players off the board that qualify in the outfield through the first five rounds in 15-teamers.
After that it levels off a bit and we get more of the traditional gradual slide down the rest of the rankings.
As far as how I plan to attack the position, here’s what I’m seeing at my first glance.
Of the first-round types, I like Carroll and Rodriguez the best at cost and have both ranked above Tucker, Soto, Tatis and Betts. I could see myself trying to snag one of them if I have a pick near the end of the first round.
As we explored in the third base preview, Chisholm pops on my board as well, but I’d be grabbing him to play in the infield for me if calling his name in the second round.
Langford looks like a positive value to me as well, which is interesting because I’m normally not buying into players taking that big leap forward in their second season. He’s 14th on my list of outfielders though and ranks 16th by ADP, so he’s someone that I could see myself taking at cost.
The first guy that really jumps off the list though is Butler. He’s the 15th player in my rankings at the position and 19th by ADP. The dynamic 24-year-old put his tools on full display in 2024, crushing 22 homers and swiping 18 bases in only 125 games. He’ll get to play his home games in a cozy minor league stadium, which should help to boost the power numbers and the counting stats will take a leap forward from getting a full season and hitting in a premium spot in the A’s lineup.
We’re down on Harris according to the numbers, as he’s the 20th ranked outfielder on my board and 14th by ADP, so it’s unlikely that we wind up drafting any of him. Right underneath him though, we have a pair of strong values in Christian Yelich and Victor Robles.
Yelich is returning from undergoing surgery on his back, so we’ll want to see him healthy and swinging it during spring training before fully committing, but the production is simply too great to pass up where he’s currently being drafted. Robles is a much more interesting case, as he gets there primarily on the stolen base totals. He’s going to crush his overall market price (ADP 193), but his fit on any particular roster is more nuanced – you’ll need to be able to handle the overall lack of power and not go over the stolen base target for him to be a good fit. He’s a player that I’ll have interest in depending on what my team builds look like in the 10th or 11th round.
Josh Lowe looks like a positive value in the middle rounds, but a few picks later we have massive interest in Tigers outfielder Parker Meadows. I think people are glancing too much at the season-long stat line and not considering just how brutal he was for the first few months and how good he was once he returned from Triple-A. He slashed a monstrous .300/.304/.513 with seven homers, 25 RBI and six stolen bases in 50 games after returning in July. He’s locked in as the team’s leadoff hitter against right-handed pitching and could wind up being one of the best overall values on the board at his current ADP (184). He’s someone that I will likely be targeting around his min pick (147), so likely the 10th round for me.
Teammate Kerry Carpenter goes shortly after him in ADP (200) and pops as a tremendous value on my board. He’s going to sit against most left-handers and isn’t going to contribute much in stolen bases, but his front-four category production is being under represented in most projection systems. As long as he stays healthy, he’s going to crush this draft spot and will be on most of my teams.
The next huge value standing out on my board is still looking for a team as we approach spring training, and that’s Jurickson Profar. Obviously, it’s predicated on the fact that he lands a full-time role wherever he ends up, but I’m buying into what we saw from him with the Padres in 2024. He doesn’t need anything close to a full repeat of that magical season to return a profit from pick 232. He’s another player that I’ll be actively targeting.
Jake McCarthy, Jesús Sánchez, Garrett Mitchell are all looking like nice values on my board where they are currently being drafted, though team construction and categorical needs may dictate which, if any, of them I wind up targeting in the middle rounds.
I’m also surprised to see that some long-time favorites of mine, Randy Arozarena and Adolis García, don’t grade out well based on my projections and are unlikely to be players that I wind up with much interest in.
Nolan Jones, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., George Springer and Jorge Soler all grade out as nice OF4 targets, but the one player that stands out the most in that group is JJ Bleday. The 27-year-old former top prospect cut his strikeout rate considerably, made a concerted effort to hit more balls in the air and eclipsed the 20-homer plateau for the first time in his career in 2024. Now, he’ll get the added benefit of playing half of his games in a minor league park instead of the Coliseum in Oakland. I think he takes another step forward in the power department which makes him a very strong target at his current ADP (272).
Other guys that look like strong values as OF4 or OF5 options are Michael Conforto, Evan Carter, Trevor Larnach and Daulton Varsho.
Of this list of 135 players, I’ll probably narrow it down to around 40-50 guys in total that I’m comfortable with heading into the draft and will wind up grabbing my six or seven outfielders from that condensed group.
Until I am really able to set up a full draft plan, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly which players that I’ll be targeting from this group. For sure we’re going to be actively going after Butler, Meadows and Carpenter. If we’re successful in landing all three, we will pretty much let the other two outfield spots fall into place wherever they fit in the draft plan based on how we’re attacking the other positions.
Hopefully at some point in my ramblings here you were able to at least glean some valuable information that you can take with you when attempting to craft your draft plan for the upcoming season. If you perform the same types of exercises at every position, know the player pool forward and backwards and know in which pockets of the draft you’re more likely to target each position, then you’re already a few steps ahead of the competition and well on your way to competing for a league title.