A complete position breakdown on what you need to know before you draft
Feb 27, 2026 at 8:32 am ET • 4 min read
What do you need to know about the outfield position for Fantasy Baseball in 2026? Well, we'll start at the top: You're probably taking one in the first round or two. That's not a guarantee, but with eight outfielders inside of the top-20 in ADP, there's a pretty good chance.
Here's the other thing to know: If you don't get one of those early outfielders, you're running a real risk of getting left behind. That's less of a concern in three-outfielder leagues, but it's a real one in deeper leagues. That's not to say it's a shallow position, but when the tier drops come, they come fast.
Just look at Scott White's tiers for proof. The top tier has five outfielders, while the second tier has five more, and the third has 10 more. The "Next-Best Things" tier? Just five names deep, and you might quibble with the inclusion of someone like Michael Harris or Oneil Cruz in that tier for a points league. Those 20 or so outfielders in those top three tiers are more than a half-step ahead of the rest of the position, and you typically don't see that big of a drop-off that early on.
There's plenty of solid depth, but the position is a little shorter on true impact bats, in other words. That doesn't mean you have to take multiple outfielders early -- in those three outfielder leagues especially, I would exercise patience with at least your third option, given how wide the later tiers get. But in a five-outfielder league, I probably do want at least a couple of outfielders from that top 20, if I can. I want to be ready for that drop-off.
- Position Previews: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP
- Position Strategies: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP
- Position Tiers: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP
NYY N.Y. Yankees • #99 • Age: 33
The only knock on Judge at this point is that he'll be 34 about a month after Opening Day. Whatever risks are associated with aging have not yet impacted his game, as Judge has hit at least .311 with at least 53 homers and 250 combined runs and RBI in three of his past four seasons; he hit .267 and was on pace for 57 homers and 235 combined runs and RBI in the fourth despite playing through a toe injury. The end will come at some point, but there is no other player I'd feel comfortable projecting to hit both .300 and 50 homers this season. He's my No. 1 overall pick, at least.
NYM N.Y. Mets • #22 • Age: 27
The production is going to be there. He hasn't been quite as elite a batting average source in recent years, but with consecutive 40-homer seasons to go with his typically brilliant plate discipline skills, Soto is going to put up huge numbers. The question is whether he'll perform like a top-10 player or a top-three player, and that probably comes down to whether he can come anywhere close to replicating his 38 steals from last season. With Soto publicly gunning for Shohei Ohtani's MVP crown, something tells me we're going to continue to see a more aggressive version of Soto on the bases, even if another season of nearly 40 steals seems unlikely.
ATL Atlanta • #13 • Age: 28
Acuña is probably going to hit like a first-rounder – his 2025 pace over 162 games would have been 126 runs, 36 homers, 72 RBI, and a .290 average. The question here is also about speed, as Acuña stole just nine bases in his 95 games after returning from a torn ACL (his second). It's fair to be worried about whether we'll see a particularly active version of Acuña on the base paths, but I'm pretty confident we will after seeing him steal 11 bases in just 16 games in the Venezuelan Winter League. If he's willing to run that much in that context, I don't see any reason to think he won't be aggressive in the majors. If you're looking for a candidate to crash the Aaron Judge/Shohei Ohtani party at the top, Acuña is the best choice.
LAD L.A. Dodgers • #23 • Age: 29
When he's on the field, Tucker is a superstar. Over his past two injury-plagued seasons, he's put up the following 162-game pace: .274 average, 111 runs, 34 homers, 92 RBI, 27 steals. And now he's in the best lineup in baseball, sandwiched between some combination of the team's three future Hall of Famers at the top of the lineup. Tucker gets downgraded a bit because of the injuries, but both in the past two seasons have been misdiagnosed fractures, which just doesn't seem like something that is likely to be much of a problem moving forward. He should be a first-rounder.
SEA Seattle • #44 • Age: 25
You'd like more consistency from Rodriguez over the course of the season, but the slow starts are just kinda baked in now. When the final result is still 30-30 seasons in two out of the past three, it's hard to be too upset. And, at just 25, Rodriguez still has plenty of room to sand down the rough edges and emerge as a legitimate top-five option. He's a first-rounder in any category-based league, but he's a tier down in points.
SD San Diego • #23 • Age: 27
Is Tatis just doomed to underperform his expected stats forever? He hits the ball hard and has good plate discipline, leading to a .370 expected wOBA, good for the 22nd-best mark among all hitters. His actual wOBA? .353, which ranks 41st among all hitters, right behind Miguel Andujar and just ahead of Trent Grisham. Tatis is a good player regardless, but it sure feels like he's been leaving some meat on the bones since his wrist and shoulder injuries in 2022. Tatis could be a top-five hitter in Fantasy, but his home ballpark and unoptimized swing are holding him back, and I'm not sure how likely it is that he'll overcome that.
MIL Milwaukee • #11 • Age: 21
The step forward didn't come in his second season, though that's at least in part because he came back from a hamstring injury and was awful in September – he entered the month with a .284/.318/.489 line, then watched his OPS drive by more than 40 points over the final month. Chourio also didn't exactly take a step forward with the underlying stats, however, and that might be the biggest concern. For a guy who is supposed to be super tooled up but raw, Chourio has put up pretty pedestrian quality of contact metrics, including an average exit velocity that has peaked at the 60th percentile among hitters in his two seasons. If all Chourio is is the 25-25 threat with a useful batting average and counting stats he has looked like in his first two seasons, he's a viable second-round pick in all leagues. But it'd be nice if we saw some more evidence that a breakout was on the way.
ARI Arizona • #7 • Age: 25
Despite a fractured hand that threatens to keep Carroll on the IL to open the season, his price hasn't really fallen much – in 63 NFBC drafts since we learned about the injury, he is still going at 15.5 in ADP. In part, that's because he hasn't been officially ruled out for Opening Day, though given the timetable, he's likely to miss most of Spring Training even if he does make it back by Opening Day. The Diamondbacks might be willing to start Carroll without much prep for the season, but that doesn't mean it won't affect him. Research shows hitters need about 50 plate appearances to be ready for the season, and Carroll might have to get those reps on the fly. It might not impact his overall production, but a slow start can snowball, too. It feels like too much risk to take on for an early second-round pick.
CHC Chi. Cubs • #4 • Age: 23
With his elite speed and swing geared for pull-side power, Crow-Armstrong is well-suited to remain a very good player in categories. But we saw what the downside of his profile looks like after the All-Star break, when he hit .216/.262/.372. Crow-Armstrong spent the offseason working on his swing to try to avoid the slump that derailed his season, but given his poor swing decisions, I worry these kinds of issues are just always going to be inherent to his profile. He's young enough for there to be room for plenty of growth, and the power/speed profile should be strong even if the batting average tanks. But there's real risk here that Crow-Armstrong is just a major detriment to your team in a way there usually isn't for early-round picks.
WAS Washington • #29 • Age: 23
Wood's season followed a similar arc as Crow-Armstrong – he looked like a first-rounder in the first half, and he was basically unplayable for most of the second half. Wood's underlying skill set is a lot stronger than Crow-Armstrong's – he makes better swing decisions and has significantly more raw power – but he's much less optimized than Crow-Armstrong, sporting one of the lowest pulled-air rates in the league in 2025. And then he also didn't run as much as expected, further narrowing the margin for error. I think Wood's skill set as a hitter is much stronger than Crow-Armstrongs, so I'm more willing to bet on him figuring it out, but he can't put up another stretch with a near-40% strikeout rate like he did after last year's All-Star break and remain viable. There's some real bottom-out potential here.
TEX Texas • #36 • Age: 24
On the one hand, Langford has been pretty obviously overdrafted in each of the first two years of his career, and at some point, we're starting to get into "definition of insanity" territory here. But I kind of look at this one from the opposite side: Langford managed 22 homers and 22 steals in 134 games despite playing through four different oblique injuries, including one during Spring Training that disrupted his prep for the season. That feels like the floor here, and the underlying numbers still suggest there is an extremely high ceiling to go along with it, too.
NYY N.Y. Yankees • #35 • Age: 30
Bellinger re-signed with the Yankees, which answered the biggest question we had about him coming into 2026. He's not a superstar anymore, but he can do a reasonable facsimile of a star hitter in the friendly environs of Yankee Stadium. It's a perfect fit for his skill set, and while you may choose to use Bellinger as your first baseman (getting his speed from the 1B spot can make your whole lineup make a lot more sense), he's a perfectly fine option if you don't want to spend a premium price on an outfielder, too.
ATH Athletics • #25 • Age: 31
There's already a clear drop-off in talent here with the past few players. Rooker is good, but 2024 looks like a pretty clear outlier for the 31-year-old. I could see better results from him in 2026 thanks to an improving lineup and his excellent home park, but you shouldn't expect a return to nearly 40 homers or a .300 average like he had in 2025.
BOS Boston • #19 • Age: 21
The raw power is there. The swing decisions are there. He's even an above-average athlete. Anthony has all of the tools to be an absolute superstar – his average exit velocity was bested by only Oneil Cruz, Aaron Judge, and Shohei Ohtani, while no qualifying hitter bested his 60% hard-hit rate. He didn't do a good enough job elevating the ball consistently to live up to his highest potential as a rookie, but he did start to figure that out as the season went on – his expected wOBA over his final 100 plate appearances was .407, a mark that would challenge for a top-five spot in baseball if he did it over a full season. If he can optimize his swing path, Anthony could be a 35-homer guy; if he doesn't, he might hit .300 with 40-plus doubles. He's going awfully early for a guy without a high-end track record, but Anthony might deserve it.
SD San Diego • #3 • Age: 22
When Merrill suffered a concussion in mid-June, he was hitting .304/.347/.475 and looked well on his way to establishing himself as this generation's Freddie Freeman. Then he came back after missing a week and couldn't hit for two months, giving the skeptics something to point to. And then he came back in September and hit seven homers with a .946 OPS, which suggests to me that he just had a couple of bad months, likely because he suffered a concussion. I don't know that with 100% certainty, and the complete lack of basestealing he showed in 2025 does narrow his margin for error as a hitter. But Merrill underperformed his expected stats, which is a good reason to believe better days are ahead, even if you don't buy the concussion explanation. Me? Well, I have him as a top-12 outfielder for 2026, so you know where I stand.
DET Detroit • #31 • Age: 25
Greene has leaned into being a power hitter, and in that ballpark, it requires some sacrifices. He has become one of the most aggressive hitters in the game, pushing his strikeout rate to 30.7% along with his 52.6% swing rate in 2025 (league average if 47.3%, and he had been below that prior to last season). That came at the cost of some walks and batting average, but you'll take that tradeoff for 35-plus homers and 110-plus RBI. It might be asking a lot for him to repeat quite that level of success, but I would be surprised if we didn't get 30 homers and close to 100 RBI out of Greene. Anything short of that, given his limitations, would be hard to overcome at his new price, of course.
TOR Toronto • #4 • Age: 36
