Mixed Outfielder Rankings
It’s not feasible, wordpress-wise, to print and link all of the outfielders in a single post. And once the season gets going, we are splitting the RotoGraphs staff into positional correspondents – and the short straw would certainly be starters and outfielders if we were going to keep those positions in the hands of a single writer. So instead, you’ll have an American League outfield correspondent and an NL one (hint: you’re looking at him). Same for pitchers.
But in the meantime, you mixed leaguers are left wondering where you should get your best outfield rankings. Wonder no longer, because I’ve shared a mixed-league composite of the RotoGraph outfield rankings in this google document right here. Hopefully this will help you dominate your league. Starters will come later in the week, and you can always find this post by hitting the ‘outfielders’ tag in the ‘categories’ box to your bottom right. Here are the AL Outfielders and the NL Outfielders if you want more analysis.
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Boo having to wait until work is over because my company hates Google and blocks Google Spreadsheets/docs
Double Boo. Stupid work.
Not sure why the list couldn’t be pasted. Here are the tiers for those who are blocked!
Ryan Braun
Carlos Gonzalez
Carl Crawford
Matt Holliday
Josh Hamilton
Shin-Soo Choo
Matt Kemp
Andrew McCutchen
Nelson Cruz
Jayson Werth
Justin Upton
Jason Heyward
Hunter Pence
Jose Bautista
Ichiro Suzuki
Alex Rios
Jacoby Ellsbury
Andre Ethier
Jay Bruce
Shane Victorino
Mike Stanton
Delmon Young
Drew Stubbs
Chris Young
Curtis Granderson
Nick Markakis
Corey Hart
Colby Rasmus
Angel Pagan
Brett Gardner
Juan Pierre
Martin Prado
Torii Hunter
Adam Jones
Jason Bay
Aubrey Huff
BJ Upton
Michael Bourn
Nick Swisher
Vernon Wells
Carlos Lee
Jose Tabata
Bobby Abreu
Ben Zobrist
Carlos Quentin
Dexter Fowler
Rajai Davis
Grady Sizemore
Ryan Raburn
Denard Span
Chris Coghlan
Carlos Beltran
Magglio Ordonez
Lance Berkman
Luke Scott
Marlon Byrd
Manny Ramirez
Travis Snider
Seth Smith
Will Venable
Alfonso Soriano
Logan Morrison
Nyjer Morgan
Andres Torres
Franklin Gutierrez
Austin Jackson
Jason Kubel
Ryan Ludwick
Raul Ibanez
Tyler Colvin
David DeJesus
J.D. Drew
Cody Ross
Garrett Jones
Nate McLouth
Sean Rodriguez
David Murphy
Coco Crisp
Josh Willingham
Domonic Brown
Carlos Gomez
Peter Bourjos
Johnny Gomes
Ben Francisco
Alex Gordon
Julio Borbon
Cameron Maybin
Mark DeRosa
Michael Morse
Johnny Damon
Juan Rivera
Matt Joyce
Michael Brantley
Roger Bernadina
Lorenzo Cain
Ryan Spilborghs
Chris Dickerson
Kosuke Fukudome
Ryan Sweeney
Michael Saunders
Desmond Jennings
Brad Hawpe
Kyle Blanks
Gerardo Parra
Ryan Kalish
Felix Pie
Jeff Francoeur
Brennan Boesch
Like, duh, haha. I guess I just meant we couldn’t link every name, the work would have been prohibitive. But I could have pasted it.
Andres Torres is ranked way too low. Should be in the same general vicinity as Pagan.
False Pagan has quite an advantage in steals and avg while R RBI
Pagan has shown just once (last yr) that he is useful. I am not biting that early on a one yr wonder. I have had 2 live drafts, both 12 team mixed starting 5 OF’s and Pagan went in the 15 – 18 rds. That seems about right for him.
I believe in Pagan, but if you don’t, include him in the next tier down and I think he’s in the right place still. Obviously, as the last man in a tier, I struggled with that decision too. But mostly he’s been having health problems, and has shown this promise before. If he’s healthy, he’ll deserve that ranking.
Andres Torres was a reserve in April and lost the entire month of September to appendicitis. Neither of those situations are likely to repeat themselves. In between, Torres’ numbers were every bit as good as Pagan’s if not better! They should be ranked in the same tier.
Torres played in 18 Sept/Oct games and got 43 ABs in 16 April games. But let’s go from the beginning of May to the end of August, just for random end points that should give em both 100% playing time.
Torres: .284/.364/.514 with 14 HR, 21 SB, 56 RBI and 74 runs
Pagan: .301/.351/.462 with 9 HR, 30 SB, 47 RBI and 58 runs
So, closer than I thought. But Pagan had a great April runs-wise, and it seems unfair to take away two decent months from him just because Torres was so bad/injured in September. Especially when we’re actually discounting 100ish ABs from Torres.
If we go from April 23rd (when Torres got the job) to September 11 (when he got injured), it looks a little different:
Torres: .275/.350/.490 with 14 HR, 23 SB, 60 RBI and 81 runs
Pagan: .293/.343/.444 with 9 HR, 32 SB, 54 RBI and 71 runs
Now with those two lines, I’m taking Pagan.
Also, this is about projecting, not going backwards. And Torres’ 25% K-rate says to me that he’s going to have a lower batting average than Pagan (17% career). So all the projection systems have Pagan hitting .290 and Torres at .270. A handful of home runs won’t really overcome that, especially with a bounce-back from the Mets lineup fueling some R and RBI love.
But it seems your larger point is valid, perhaps they should be closer together. It’s an aggregate ranking, and people don’t like low batting averages.
Thanks for posting, Eno. One comment: there’s no reason Scott Sizemore and Ryan Raburn can be right next to one another.
Fixed it haha. Yeah, Grady.
Let’s see… I went all-in on my infield and starting pitchers this year, and so my outfield is terrible (also, my second round pick, number 18 overall, was Chase Utley, so the whole infield thing ain’t looking too hot either…) Anyway, for the worst outfield you will find anybody having in a big money fantasty league this year, with their rankings here listed (10 team mixed league 5×5 roto):
16. Ichiro Suzuki
33. Brett Gardner
37. Adam Jones
38. Jason Bay
43. Vernon Wells
54. Denard Span
Before Utley went down, my Texiera – Utley – Rollins – Longoria infield was sitting pretty, and my Kershaw – Jiminez – Cain – Gallardo – Hudson – Bumgarner – Volquez rotation is solid (especially with Johan Santana stored on the bench just in case), but that outfield is a crime against nature. I’ll be lucky if those six players top 60 HR total.
The only problem here is that the Suzuki pick was a total waste unless you got him ridiculously late. His runs are way, way down so his steals and average are about all you get from him. You’d have been better getting some speed late and picking someone wtih some upside there like Bruce, Rasmus, Stanton, Chris Young as opposed to Ichiro. It’s been 2-3 years since he’s performed at the level of where he’s been drafted.
I have to agree on the Ichiro pick. Not a fan of Bay either. Still, I’d take that OF any day. (I’m prepping to have a similar approach this year.)
Wells and Span are quality imo. Wells getting off the turf could pay huge dividends…as it’s done with Hunter’s post-30 performance. Span is a good hitter who has a lot of rebound potential.
Gardner’s value could be in shouting distance of Ellsbury by season’s end. And Adam Jones is inching closer to his prime…with a better offense taking some pressure away from him.
That’s 4 OF I could see surprising. And given the odds of a breakout OF emerging, versus a breakout SS, I think you played it nicely.
First, thank you for all this goodness you send out into the world.
I spreadsheeted all the Fangraphs tiers so they appear in columns side by side and it looked counter-intuitive. Brain McCann and Shin Soo might be First Tier Catcher and First Tier Outfielder, but they’re not First Tier Offensive.
So I mushed it all up into one aggregate “Tiered Offensive Player” cheat sheet (with suitable positional adjustment). That pushes McCann, Choo, Hamilton, etc. down from the first tier. That feels right as a draft cheat sheet.
Two additional benefits: (1) That aggregate chart translates into auction values pretty well; (2) color coding positions preserves the benefits of Fangraphs positional tiering , which is useful at the end game when you’re filling holes.
I suppose you don’t want to share haha.
I’m happy to.
My first upload of an excel spreadsheet into google ever are the Fangraph Tiers set out side by side. Three tabs.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ApbxAjm5Imp4dG05M1N0bXhqQkpyVy0tcjZobjducnc&hl=en&authkey=CJrM6rwN
I printed my “Offensive Player Tier” and “Pitcher Tier” cheat sheets off of Bloomberg, with adjustments based on Fangraph tiers, and used a thick pencil to establish the tiers and dollar amounts. I’m happy to share that too, but its not going to be any use: 4×4 league, the quantity of players in each tier and dollar amounts are based on my league’s prior auction results (hard learned lesson: do not trust anyone else’s $$ projections, an automated system can deliver “worth” but that ain’t the same as “cost”).
hey, I just noticed that almost all the Fangraph links survived the upload. Nice.
would you rather have Hunter Pence or Chris Young in a 5×5 keeper league, but with OPS instead of AVG (negating a large part of CY’s disadvantage)?
both 27ish, power/speed combos… CY has more SB potential and IMHO a little higher upside, but HP is more consistent and probably has a bit more power ceiling.
I’d rather have Pence, just because he’s ‘safer,’ but if someone was going to trade me Young for Pence and give me an upgrade somewhere else, I’d be inclined to give that deal a good look.
Is there a certain threshhold of ‘cost’ that would switch that?
Meaning Pence in round 5 vs Young in round 7…something like that.
Then it is as much about opportunity cost as the players themselves. In round 5 there’s probably an ace or two still available. In round 7 less so.
You mention trade value, and that’s how I’d look at them. Say, Pence and Buchholz for Ubaldo and Young. In that scenario I like Young better than Pence!
(yes, this is a tangent to the original either/or question…)
Identical “cost”, trade value is irrelevant. It’s just a straight-up question, who would rather have in a keeper league with OPS instead of AVG, all other things being equal?
The question is being asked because where I pick in my keeper draft, they project as the top 2 OF talents available, and I am torn. Pence is so consistent but I am just dazzled by the extra 5-10 SB, my memory of how good of a prospect CY was, and the idea that CY has a higher ceiling (he was better last year than Pence and has had another great season in the past with 32 HR + 27 SB).
But on the other hand, I don’t like to draft guys after their best year….
Yikes. Bj Upton is not where I expected him to be. Chose him over Rasmus in my keeper draft.
Speed with teens HR power, and a frightening average are not something to seek out too early in the draft.
Well it was a keeper draft after 10 freezes. Best OF bats at the time of my pick where Upton, Rasmus, Ad Jones, D Span, Beltran etc