2019 Fantasy Baseball: AL-Only Outfield Rankings and Projections

Hopefully by now you’ve checked out the rest of the 2019 FantraxHQ Fantasy Baseball Draft Kit. We got started on New Year’s Day and the great content is starting to pile up. If you’ve been following it, you know that much of my content is geared toward deeper formats. If find monleagues much more challenging and enjoyable. The variation in production forces us to make a lot of tough choices that we don’t always have to make in mixed leagues. Don’t get me wrong, I love all formats, but for me the deeper the better. In this post I’ll go over my 2019 AL-Only Outfield Rankings. You can also check out the rest of my AL-Only Rankings or all of my NL-Only Rankings.

If you’re like us you can’t wait until spring to get the 2019 fantasy baseball season started? Well, you don’t have to. Leagues are already forming at Fantrax.com, so head on over and start or join a league today.

About My Rankings

I explain a lot more about how I do my rankings in my AL-Catcher Rankings article, but the main takeaway is that they are all based on the projections you see accomanying each player below. This way I don’t let my biases and preconceived notions affect what is pretty much a mathematical process once the projections are in place.

My AL-Only Outfield Rankings are testing my principles on this. I believe in the projections, yet when I look at a few of the players, their rankings don’t seem in line with the way my gut says to draft. The good news is the process of projecting and ranking players is never over… well, at least up until the last draft is in the books. I’ll be tweaking my projections and all my rankings almost up until Opening Day. In a few days I’ll have posted the last of my positional rankings and will post my Top 300 rankings for AL-Only and NL-Only. Then I look back at the projections and go through the process all over again.

Outfielders to Target in 2019 AL-Only Leagues

I’m not going to say much about the top couple tiers. Obviously if your league uses a straight draft you’re going to go with Mike Trout or Mookie Betts if they are available. I will say that in auctions it will most likely cost you $40-plus to purchase them. In monoleagues I am a huge believer in spread the wealth for my offense. I have never roster Mike Trout in my AL-Only leagues. Sad, but I’ll console myself with the prize money I win most years.

Tommy Pham is not going for a discount in the early industry mocks I’ve done, but in some leagues people might not notice the way he rebounded after coming to the Rays. I hate drafting speed only guys, so Pham is the perfect player for me. Not likely to hit 30 HRs or steal 30 bases, but he could easily go 20/20.

I’ve never been on the Byron Buxton bandwagon. He’s finally in a situation where I’m buying in; not as a future superstar, but as a useful player who could knock out double-digit homers and steal 30-plus bases. If the Twins just let him play and accept his shortcomings he will be an asset in fantasy leagues.

Domingo Santana is one of the outfielders making me question my rankings.  I’ve got him as my 34th-ranked outfielder, mostly because of batting average concerns, but it was just in 2017 when he hit 30 home runs and stole 15 bases with a .278 average. Once I add dollar values to my rankings I will likely bump him up a few notches if the dollar values are close to those currently ranked above him. You have to somehow reward upside without counting on it.

Willie Calhoun is a little further down the list, but like Santana, he offers more upside than most of the players around him. We’ve been hearing about him long enough that some of the prospect luster has worn off, but he still has the same hit tool that had scouts drooling.

Outfielders to Avoid

Everybody talks about the shortage of speed in fantasy, but in AL-Only leagues there is a ton of it. The Royals alone have three 40-steal candidates. Gordon can still run but I’m not sure he’s got the bat to get back in the 40-SB range. He also offers nothing in the way of power, has scored over 100 runs just one time in his career, and will turn 31 years old in April. The speed is just not worth the cost.

Justin Upton is another aging player whose name carries more value than the production he’s been putting up. Upton stole just eight bases in 2018 and has hit under .260 in three of the past four years. The term avoid may not fit, as he’ll have some value. He’ll just be long gone before I think he should be.

2019 AL-Only Outfield Rankings

The rankings and projections below are based on the traditional 5X5 scoring categories and a 20-game eligibility requirement. The exception is that I included Khris Davis, Nelson Cruz, and Mark Trumbo in these rankings. They may not be elgible in most leagues, but did play the outfield in 2018.

More AL-Only Fantasy Baseball Rankings: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP

If you like these AL-Only Outfield Rankings check out the rest of the 2019 FantraxHQ Fantasy Baseball Draft Kit. We’ll be adding more content from now right up until Opening Day!

Doug Anderson is an 11-year veteran of the Fantasy Sports industry. His work has appeared on RotoExperts.com, Yahoo.com, SI.com, and NFL.com, as well as in the pages of USA Today’s Fantasy Baseball Weekly and various other magazines. Doug has participated in both LABR and Tout Wars, the two preeminent expert fantasy baseball leagues in existence. Doug was formerly the Executive Editor at RotoExperts and is now Managing Editor here at FantraxHQ. You can follow him on Twitter @RotoDaddy.

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