What a difference a year makes.
In 2024 Fantasy Baseball Draft Prep season, every discussion about the state of the outfield position was about how terrible things were. What has historically been the deepest position in Fantasy was looked at as a wasteland, and it caused us to force iffy names like Cody Bellinger and Nolan Jones into the first five rounds of ADP. Because, if you didn't do that, you might have to settle for even iffier names like Nick Castellanos, Lane Thomas, or Jordan Walker in the first 10 rounds. Yikes.
This time around, we can be a lot pickier about the outfielders we're taking. Sure, there are still some questionable picks, but even relatively unproven names like Lawrence Butler and Brenton Doyle are going later than Jones or Bellinger were last year in most drafts, and both are basically at the bottom of the top-20 at the position; Jones was close to a top-12 outfielder in some drafts!
We can thank legitimate breakouts from the likes of Doyle, Jarren Duran, Jackson Chourio, and Jackson Merrill for some of the newfound depth at the position, and hoped-for breakouts from Langford, Butler, and James Wood help explain a lot of the enthusiasm Fantasy drafters have for the top end of the position, too.
- Position Strategies: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP
- Position Previews: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP
- Position Tiers (v. 2.0): C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP
But a word of warning here: Things can change quickly in Fantasy Baseball. A position that was talked about like a toxic wasteland this time a year ago is now arguably the deepest position in the game, and while that could stick – I'm not necessarily betting against those breakout picks! – there's a lot being invested in very limited track records at outfield this season. Every star has to start somewhere, but spending a premium draft pick on a player with only one season's worth of success under their belt – and a lot less than that in the case of some of the names being discussed – is a recipe for a Fantasy headache.
I'm not saying outfield isn't a deep position, full of both stars at the high end of the rankings and big-time upside the further you go down. I'm just reminding you not to have too short of a memory. Don't pass on proven stars because you "know" the lower-priced guys are going to be just as good. There's still a decent amount of projecting going on at this position, and we're not always as good at projecting as we think. Here's what else you need to know:
Consensus Top 24
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I guess the new, healthy baseline for Aaron Judge is just high-50s homer totals, something he's done in two of the past three years – and he was on pace for 57 in the other year. He'll be 33 shortly after the season starts, but with no signs of slowing down, betting against Judge just doesn't make a ton of sense at this point. Injury risk is the biggest red flag here, but that's not a reason to ever let Judge fall further than third in any league.
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A shin injury robbed Tucker of what could have been a career season, and the smaller sample size robbed us of knowing for sure if Tucker took another step forward. He upped his walk rate to 16.5% while his strikeout rate remained well within the normal range for his career, and Tucker's 23 homers in 78 games put him on pace to demolish his previous career best marks. Chicago is a tougher place to hit, but if Tucker hits like he did last season, it probably won't matter much – and he might be a top-five player in Fantasy if he does.
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Soto's first season in New York went about as well as you could have hoped, but the job will be a little harder with his cross-borough move to the Mets. Citi Field is a tougher home park than Yankee Stadium to hit in, more akin to Petco, where Soto notably struggled (relatively speaking). I'm not saying I expect Soto to struggle in 2025, but a repeat of last year's 41-homers seems unlikely, at the very least. He's still a first-rounder, but it's worth resetting expectations after a career-best season.
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Was last year the start of a decline phase from Betts? We've thought that before only for him to unlock new levels of upside, so I don't want to write him off … but I kind of think last season was the start of a decline phase from Betts. His multi-eligibility and overall strong skill set (especially in that lineup) keep him in the first round in Fantasy drafts, but I don't expect a return to top-three status.
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It was truly a tale of two seasons for Carroll, who was downright dreadful for the first three months of the season, finishing the month of June with a .213/.305/.315 line. He was hitless on July 1, but he slowly started turning things around from that point, hitting .250/.339/.549 with a near-40-homer pace over the final three months. He's not a 40-homer hitter, but Carroll admitted his tried to rework his swing in the offseason and it left him off-time when he tried to drive the ball. There's some batting average risk here for a first-rounder – Carroll's career expected batting average is .251 – but he's going to hit for power and steal a bunch of bases and probably rank among the league leaders in runs scored again. If he avoids the depths of his 2024 slump in the bad times, Carroll should remain a viable first-rounder.
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Tatis dealt with another serious injury in 2024, this time a right femur stress fracture that limited him to just 102 games. And when he was on the field, Tatis still didn't look much like the guy we thought would be challenging for the No. 1 pick for a decade a few years back. And yet, he's still a first rounder, which is a testament to the upside he is still capable of flashing when everything is going right. He underperformed his expected wOBA by nearly 30 points, one of the biggest gaps in the majors, but also continuing a multi-year trend – he has underperformed by at least 28 points in three of his past four seasons. There is still No. 1 overall player upside here – 40 homers, 30 steals? – but it looks less certain with each passing season.
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Rodriguez is a slow starter. His OPS has been at least 123 points higher in the second half of each of his three MLB seasons than the first half, so we can probably assume there's some predictability there. Why does Rodriguez get off to consistently slow starts? Well, that's the harder question to answer, but I think it speaks to something inherently inconsistent in Rodriguez's skill set. We know the ceiling is sky-high here, but he's a flawed hitter in a tough hitting environment, and that makes him one of the riskier early-rounders out there.
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2024 was a weirdly down year for counting stats for Alvarez, which probably explains why his price is down a bit in drafts. I'll take the discount on one of the most dominant hitters in Fantasy, a big bat capable of both hitting .310 and 40-plus homers if everything comes together. I'm not sure he's a worse Fantasy option than Juan Soto, given the park downgrade for Soto, and he's going at close to a round discount in drafts these days. Alvarez is one of my favorite second-round targets in all drafts.
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It took Jackson Chourio almost exactly two months to figure it out at the major-league level, and once he did, it was full steam ahead. From June 1, Chourio hit .303/.358/.525 and looked every bit like a future MVP winner. He doesn't quite generate elite exit velocities yet, but he also doesn't turn 21 until shortly before the season, so there's plenty of room to grow into a legit power threat – and there's enough speed here to swipe 40 bags if the Brewers unleash him. Chourio might not challenge for the No. 1 player spot in 2025, but it's not out of the question.
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I have to assume 2024 was close to a best-case scenario for Duran, if only because it's hard to imagine much better. He's an extremely well-rounded hitter, and he might just be a first-round hitter available at a relative discount. The problem is, we really only have a one-year sample size of him producing at this level – except that he was nearly identical on a per-game basis in 2024, when the Red Sox were much more careful about his playing time. Duran is older than you'd think, but there's no reason to think 2024 was a fluke.
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Merrill came to the majors with significantly less hype than Chourio, but was arguably already more of a finished production. He's an aggressive swinger, but that didn't really hold him back, because Merrill just creates so much damage when he makes contact, and he makes plenty of contact. He sported a 97th percentile expected batting average and 96th percentile slugging percentage as a 21-year-old rookie with no experience above Double-A, and if his home park and spray chart make it unlikely he'll live up to quite that ceiling, you can still see some Christian Yelich-y outcomes here on the high ends. This might be the last time we're drafting Merrill outside of the first-round until 2030 or so.
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Chisholm mostly stayed healthy in 2024 and gave us a tantalizing glimpse of just how the upside can be after his trade to the Yankees. He had 11 homers and 18 steals in just 46 games post-trade, a 30-homer, 50-steal pace that would make him one of the most valuable players in Fantasy. You know the knocks: He can't stay healthy, having missed 38 games in 2021, 102 in 2022, and 65 in 2023; even in 2024, he played through a UCL sprain in his left elbow late in the season that could have sidelined him longer if the Yankees weren't in a playoff race. If he stays healthy, there aren't many players with more power/speed potential than Chisholm, but the injury risk will surely scare many drafters off at his cost.
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Acuña is going to miss the start of the season, but we still don't actually know when he's going to play this season. Does that mean he will return a few weeks into April, or does it mean he might not see the field until May? The Braves are taking a more conservative approach after Acuna struggled a bit in his return from the same injury in 2022, but we know he can be the best player in Fantasy when he's right. We just don't know when that's going to happen, so how draftable Acuna is will mostly come down to how much risk you can personally stomach.
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2024 was a disappointment for Harris, but the underlying skill set here still looks as strong as ever. His expected batting average was .284, right in line with his .287 career line, and his .344 xwOBA was also just a few points off his career mark. He remains one of the better bets for batting average out there, and should at least challenge for a 20-20 season with solid counting stats – his spot in the Braves lineup often keeps him from putting up the huge counting stats he is capable of, but with Acuna likely to miss the start of the season, this year could be an exception. I'm buying any discounts you might offer on Harris.
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Cruz remains more of an interesting collection of tools than a fully actualized baseball player at this point, and it's fair to wonder if it's ever going to really come together for the 26-year-old. But those tools remain tantalizing – nobody in baseball hits the ball harder than Cruz, and he ran at a 40-steal pace in the second half of last season. Is there a 30-40 ceiling here? Yeah, there might be. But he might also hit .230, and he hasn't actually tapped into anything close to that kind of upside in either category, so drafting Cruz still requires more reaching than some will be comfortable with. I might be in that group.
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Like Cruz, Wood isn't even close to fully actualizing as a baseball player, and yet he just finished his rookie season as a 21-year-old with nine homers and 14 steals in just 79 games. That came with a 55.1% groundball rate and just 64% success rate as a base stealer, so it doesn't take much imagination to see what Wood might be capable of if he irons out the kinks in his game. Of course, it doesn't always happen as quickly as we'd like – remember the multiple years spent waiting for Vladimir Guerrero to be more than an incredibly intriguing, but ultimately average Fantasy player. Wood's speed should give him a leg up even if the bat doesn't get all the way there, but a top-50 pick is an awfully steep price to pay for an unfinished product.
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Langford's rookie season was underwhelming, which mostly tells us how high the expectations were. And, frankly, should still be. He didn't put it all together in year one, but the tool set here remains incredibly tantalizing, as Langford had a terrific approach at the plate, made plenty of contact, and hit the ball hard enough to sport a 68th percentile expected wOBA as a rookie. He didn't tear the cover off the ball the way some expected, but it's clearly an above-average offensive profile even before accounting for the 25-steal upside that comes with his 98th percentile sprint speed. Langford comes off the board a few rounds after Chourio and Merrill, but the 2025 upside may not be that different.
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We all knew the Dodgers were the perfect landing spot for Hernandez last offseason, and we're all happy he's returning to the same spot in 2025. Hernandez remains a relatively volatile hitter because of his poor plate discipline, and he's not going to chip in more than 10 or so steals these days, but the lineup and home park insulate him from much of the risk. Even if things go wrong, he's probably still a safe bet for 25 homers and 90 or so RBI.
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Butler had two pretty incredible months in 2024: July, when he had a 1.210 OPS with 10 homers, and August, when he had an .886 OPS and eight homers. Otherwise, he ranged from "fine" (.739 OPS, two homers in September) to "So bad he got sent back to Triple-A. The tools are loud, and we have a proof of concept for what it can look like when he's locked in. Is that enough to justify what is often a top-75 pick in Roto drafts? I think there's just too much risk there, but I can certainly see the upside – and there's a real chance we're talking about Butler as a second-round pick this time next year.
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Doyle is a good example of how skill sets aren't as stable as we like to think. He looked like a downright bad hitter by basically every metric in 2023, and then he just got a lot better at basically everything in 2024. He cut his strikeout rate by 10 points and did so while hitting the ball significantly harder, leading to an increase in xwOBA from .258 to .329. And there might be even more room to grow, as Doyle could probably stand to benefit even more from Coors Field's inflationary effects. On the other hand, it's just a one-season sample to go off, and we've seen how useless Doyle can be when things go wrong. His defense keeps him insulated from playing time risk, and his speed will be helpful no matter what, but there's a chance Doyle is a legitimate drag on your offense.
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Talk about a volatile skill set. Robert showed us the ceiling in 2023 (38 homers, 20 steals) and the floor in 2024 (14 homers, 23 steals, a .224 average), and between the volatility and the inability to stay healthy, many Fantasy drafts are just out on Robert. There's a discount for his services in 2025, but he'll still cost you something around a top-90 pick in most drafts, and that's a lot to risk on a profile with this many ways for it to go wrong. On the other hand, you only need one hand to count the number of players who have had a 35-homer, 20-steal season in the past two, and everyone else on that list is going inside of the top 30 in 2025.
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Suzuki didn't quite live up to the loftiest expectations placed on him, but he was pretty awesome in 2024, and notably got better as the season went on. He posted an OPS of at least .849 in each of the final four months, and the underlying data largely backs it up. Suzuki could take another step forward and become more like a 30-homer guy at his peak, but right now, he looks like a 25-15 player with a helpful batting average in an improving lineup, and that'll help any Fantasy team.
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Santander parlayed a career-best season into a big contract with the Blue Jays, but it's not like he was a significantly different player in 2024 than previous years. The 44 homers are obviously the outlier, and you shouldn't expect any kind of repeat of that. But 30-plus feels like a safe bet, and there should be plenty of RBI to go with them. He's a fairly one-dimensional slugger, but also a fairly safe one who won't totally tank your batting average.
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Just eat your oatmeal, okay? Reynolds isn't going to get anyone's blood flowing, but he's a perfect fine No. 2 outfielder for Fantasy. He has hit exactly 24 homers in three of the past four seasons (high is 27), with a batting average between .262 and .275 in the past three. He'll swipe 10 or so bases. He'll give you solid run and RBI production. He's fine.
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Don't Forget About ...
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Greene is a very good hitter, who is probably being held back from being a great one by the ballpark he calls home. He's Tigers-era Nick Castellanos 2.0, whose upside will probably never be truly unlocked until he gets to a park with more generous power alleys. Of course, he did take a big step forward last season, and it's not that hard to see an outcome where he hits 30 homers and drives in 100-plus runs, health and an improving Tigers lineup permitting.
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I get it. I know. You don't have to tell me. Mike Trout can't stay healthy. I know. But here's the thing: What if he does? From 2001 through 2004, Ken Griffey Jr. missed more than half his team's games in his age-31 through 34 seasons; he would go on to play 81% of his team's games over the next four seasons. I'm just saying, it's happened before. What does 80% of a season from Mike Trout look like these days? Well, let's just take his 162-game pace from the past four seasons and take 20% off, giving us a .276 average, 87 runs, 37 homers, 76 RBI, and six steals. The path to profit is fraught with opportunities for new injuries, but it's also a fairly clear one. I'll take the plunge at least a few times this draft season.
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Since being made the No. 2 overall pick in the 2023 MLB Draft, Crews has been a disappointment, it's fair to say. He hasn't been bad for the most part (.806 OPS in the minors), but he just hasn't been the obvious superstar everyone expected when he was in college. Still, I remain extremely optimistic about his chances of being a very good major leaguer, and his .641 OPS in 31 MLB games last year doesn't really deter me. If anything, the process stats are reason to be optimistic – he didn't do much damage, but Crews displayed very good plate discipline and largely didn't look overwhelmed. That doesn't mean he'll be an impact Fantasy option this year, but I like his chances at the top of the Nationals lineup.
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Carpenter missed a bunch of time with injuries last season, but when he was on the field, he was an offensive force, sporting a massive .932 OPS with 18 homers over 296 plate appearances. So, he's a 30-homer bat if he just stays healthy, right? Well, it's not quite that simple. Carpenter started just two games against left-handed pitchers and had just 32 plate appearances against them, so his rate states are naturally inflated by being a platoon bat. A very good platoon bat can still be a useful Fantasy option, but nobody's beating down the door to spend a top-200 pick on Joc Pederson, either.
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A funny thing happened with Robles after he got to Seattle last year: He seemingly learned to hit! Robles' expected wOBA for his career is just .287, but it was .336 after he joined the Mariners last season, a decidedly above-average mark. There were signs of this in a limited sample size in 2023, as his average exit velocity grew from worst-in-baseball range to a merely bad 86.7 mph, and he sustained that gain in 2024. He probably isn't going to be even an above-average hitter, but if Robles can hit .260-.270, he's going to be a useful Fantasy option thanks to his speed. Is there that big of a difference between Robles' skill set and Xavier Edwards'? Or Pete Crow-Armstrong's? Is it enough of a gap to justify the 40-to-60-pick price difference? I'm not convinced?
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Conforto hasn't forgotten how to hit, and he's going to remind us this season with the Dodgers. Stuck in one of the worst parks for left-handed hitters in baseball, Conforto has been kind of forgotten for Fantasy, but playing in this Dodgers lineup, in a much better home park for power, he's going to remind us. Could he have a similar resurgence to what we saw from Teoscar Hernandez? There's some platoon risk that makes it harder to achieve quite those highs, but it's not out of the question – for his career, he would have hit 53% more homers in Dodger Stadium than in San Francisco, per BaseballSavant.com's tracking data. 25 homers and 80-plus RBI is not out of the question here even if he's not quite an everyday player.
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Sleeper
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The thing about Anthony is, he's either going to go undrafted in most leagues or he's going to force his way onto the Red Sox roster this spring and be a top-150 pick. He's only played 35 games at Triple-A, but he more than held his own, hitting .344/.463/.519 while showcasing a terrific approach at the plate and excellent quality-of-contact metrics. As a 20-year-old. The Red Sox have a full outfield right now … kind of – Ceddanne Rafaela can play either middle infield spot, and the Red Sox would still seemingly love to move Masataka Yoshida, which would free up the DH spot, too. Which is to say, if Anthony forces their hand this spring, there could be a path for him. With his combination of plus power and excellent plate discipline at such a young age, I think Anthony could have superstar upside.
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Breakout
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The easiest call in the world, because the breakout already happened. Chourio had an OPS below .600 as late as June 7, but he was a top-20 player in Fantasy from that point on, hitting .306/.363/.525 with a 26-homer, 26-steal pace. Just go do that for a full season and we're talking about a first-rounder. And the thing is, that's not the ceiling – of course, it isn't the ceiling for a guy who won't even turn 21 until a few weeks into Spring Training of his second season! The most obvious place for Chourio to break out is on the bases – he somehow only stole one more base than Christian Yeliuch despite playing more than twice as many games. Chourio is a premium athlete who stole 44 bases in 128 games in the minors in 2023, and there's no real reason he couldn't get to 40 on an aggressive team like the Brewers. There's a non-zero chance we're talking about Chourio as a top-three pick this time next year.
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Bust
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Here's something scary about Crow-Armstrong: He's one of the very few players who actually ranked lower than Mark Vientos in a lot of plate discipline metrics, and he obviously doesn't hit the ball nearly as hard as Vientos. What he does have going for him is arguably best-in-baseball speed and centerfield defense, which should mostly insulate him from playing time risk, which is nice. But Crow-Armstrong seems likely to be buried in the bottom of the Cubs lineup, and might just be a one-category contributor in 2025. In an era where steals are as plentiful as they are right now, you're better off waiting for Victor Robles (ADP: 196) or Cedric Mullins (219.2) for your steals.
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2025 Draft Prep
Outfield Top Prospects
1. Roman Anthony, OF, Red Sox
Age (on opening day): 20
Where he played in 2024: Double-A, Triple-A
Minor-league stats: .291 BA (454 AB), 18 HR, 21 SB, .894 OPS, 79 BB, 127 K
Anthony's massive power display at the first annual Futures Skills Showcase last summer was a coronation of sorts, bringing to fruition all the optimism generated by his exit velocity readings, and he followed through by hitting .353 with eight homers and a 1.022 OPS in 52 games thereafter. A reduction in strikeout rate coincided with this breakthrough, only further bolstering his claim as the top hitting prospect in baseball.
Scott's 2025 Fantasy impact: fighting this spring
2. Dylan Crews, OF, Nationals
Age (on opening day): 23
Where he played in 2024: Double-A, Triple-A, majors
Minor-league stats: .270 BA (397 AB), 13 HR, 25 SB, .792 OPS, 36 BB, 92 K
Major-league stats: .219 BA (119 AB), 3 HR, 12 SB, .641 OPS, 11 BB, 26 K
The second pick in the 2023 draft was presumed to be on the fast track, and the Nationals decided they didn't need to wait for his production to catch up to his favorable exit velocities and plate discipline readings, introducing him as their right fielder in late August. If nothing else, that late-season stint showed us Crews isn't shy about stealing bases, which should keep him usable even as he works to optimize the angles the ball takes off his bat.
Scott's 2025 Fantasy impact: pencil him in
3. Jasson Dominguez, OF, Yankees
Age (on opening day): 22
Where he played in 2024: Low-A, Double-A, Triple-A, majors
Minor-league stats: .314 BA (226 AB), 11 HR, 16 SB, .880 OPS, 22 BB, 50 K
Major-league stats: .179 BA (56 AB), 2 HR, 5 SB, .617 OPS, 11 BB, 19 K
Dominguez's return to the majors late last season was a far cry from his 2023 debut, which may come as a concern given that he had Tommy John surgery in between, but his time in the minors showed he's no worse for wear. He still shined in every respect there, delivering his usual power and speed, and seeing as the Yankees have freed up left field for him, they must trust him to make the remaining adjustments in the majors.
Scott's 2025 Fantasy impact: pencil him in
4. Walker Jenkins, OF, Twins
Age (on opening day): 20
Where he played in 2024: Rookie, Low-A, High-A, Double-A
Minor-league stats: .282 BA (305 AB), 6 HR, 17 SB, .833 OPS, 56 BB, 47 K
The power production for Jenkins hasn't measured up to the hype yet, but the fact he made it to Double-A at 19 -- during an injury-plagued season, no less -- tells you just how advanced his approach is. Projectability is a big part of the equation here, with Jenkins' picture-perfect left-handed swing and athletic 6-foot-3 frame pointing to considerable damage in his future, which, combined with previously stated approach, would make for a superstar outcome.
Scott's 2025 Fantasy impact: late-season look
5. Emmanuel Rodriguez, OF, Twins
Age (on opening day): 22
Where he played in 2024: Rookie, Low-A, Double-A, Triple-A
Minor-league stats: .280 BA (157 AB), 9 HR, 9 SB, 1.026 OPS, 51 BB, 62 K
Rodriguez's strikeout rate has always been dangerously high, but it's less a result of him chasing than never chasing, unwilling to swing at anything he can't throttle. Fortunately, he throttles the ball often enough that his production has held steady as he's moved up the ladder, relieving concerns that his approach will falter against more advanced pitching. The on-base skills (a .422 mark for his entire career) give him a higher margin for error as well.
Scott's 2025 Fantasy impact: midseason hopeful
