7 hours ago 1

2025 Fantasy Baseball rest-of-season rankings: Outfielders

We're a quarter of the way into the fresh baseball season. It's a fun and useful time to recalibrate the market. Last week, we tackled the starting pitchers, the sirens of our game. Today we hit the biggest part of the offense — the outfielders. We'll get to ranking the infield next week.

What has happened to this point is merely an audition. The goal with this project is to set up a cheat sheet or depth chart at a given position. You could use it for a fresh draft (the Yahoo Friends & Family Draft is coming soon!), or for trade and pickup ideas. You can use it to consider the strengths and weaknesses of your own teams.

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The salaries are a combination of data, observation and special sauce. Players at the same number are considered even. The goal is to figure out where the clusters of talent lie.

Injured players are at the bottom, courtesy ranks. Those are not for debate, but I welcome your reasonable disagreement on anything else. Catch me on Twitter or Bluesky, and away we go.

Tier 1: The Big Tickets

$44 Aaron Judge

$39 Kyle Tucker

$38 Corbin Carroll

$37 Fernando Tatis Jr.

$34 Mookie Betts

$33 Kyle Schwarber

$33 Juan Soto

$32 Jackson Merrill

$29 Oneil Cruz

$27 Jackson Chourio

$23 Pete Crow-Armstrong

$21 Julio Rodríguez

$21 Jose Altuve

$20 Byron Buxton

$20 James Wood

It was tempting to slot Judge in his own tier. He's that ridiculous. His Baseball Reference tab is a sea of black ink, identifying his dominance. He's great at pretty much everything. As you'd expect, his Baseball Savant page is a glorious sea of red sliders, pinned to the right. Sure, the average might be an eyelash lucky, but Judge's expected slugging is actually .799. He's a barrel machine. He takes walks. He almost never chases, too, rare for a slugger of this caliber. The perfect hitter.

The Cubs have been the NL's best offense all season, with Tucker the trigger man from the No. 2 slot. His batting average is actually 31-points unlucky and his slugging is 53 points shy of where it should be, so Tucker could take a step forward. The Cubs have to be nervous that Tucker could turn into a one-year rental, but they had to take the chance. Chicago looks like a sure-bet playoff team and once you make the tournament, anything can happen.

Shockingly, Tucker only has just one top 5 MVP share on his resume, a combination of some bad luck and bad timing. He'll be a deep contender this year. Did you notice he's 21-for-21 on steals since the beginning of 2024? Another ballplayer who can do anything he wants on the field.

How do you get Merrill out, exactly? He's on a 14-for-23 binge since his return from injury, pushing his OPS up top 1.259. His hard-hit metrics are dreamy and he's also pulling the ball more this year, making opponents pay when they fall behind in the count. Merrill has never posted a great walk rate, but when you're this good at pitch recognition and barreling the baseball, I won't quibble about a modest walk count. He rarely swings at a bad pitch; you miss the zone, he spits at it. It's scary to think he merely turned 22 in April.

Tier 2: Legitimate Building Blocks

$19 Brent Rooker

$18 Wilyer Abreu

$17 Seiya Suzuki

$17 Steven Kwan

$17 Christian Yelich

$17 Wyatt Langford

$15 Trent Grisham

$15 Heliot Ramos

$15 Riley Greene

$15 Lawrence Butler

$14 Kerry Carpenter

$14 Jarren Duran

Sutter Health Park has been an offensive bonanza for the first six weeks, but Butler's oddly had trouble getting comfortable there (.628 OPS at home — with a .192 average — against a .754 OPS on the road). I believe in the breakout player Butler was last year. Although his expected stats aren't fun to look at right now, this is still a power-speed profile I'm willing to bet on.

Kwan is one of my favorite players because his approach is in direct contrast to the rest of the world. At a time where so many players sell out for velocity, Kwan lags at the bottom of the hard-hit metrics and the bat speed leaderboard. Forget trying to fool him or strike him out, of course; Kwan excels at contact. And it's not like he never has an explosive result — he has 18 home runs since the beginning of 2024. He's going to win a batting title someday, and despite mediocre speed, he's good for 15-25 steals a year, too.

The Red Sox aren't in a hurry to promote uber-prospect Roman Anthony, and part of that story is Abreu's breakthrough. We knew Abreu's glove would play — he's a plus-plus defender — but he's made himself into a dynamic offensive player, significantly improving his walk and strikeout rates this year while also bumping his home runs. Abreu is nothing special as a runner but he can grab 10-12 bases a year simply by being smart and athletic. Add it all up and this is one of the most underrated hitters in MLB.

Tier 3: Talk Them Up, Talk Them Down

$12 Jung Hoo Lee

$12 Andy Pages

$12 Randy Arozarena

$12 Jasson Domínguez

$12 Jordan Beck

$12 Brenton Doyle

$11 Brendan Donovan

$11 Brandon Nimmo

$11 Tyler Soderstrom

$10 Lars Nootbaar

$10 George Springer

$10 Victor Scott II

$10 Luis Robert Jr.

$10 Cody Bellinger

$10 Nick Castellanos

$10 Michael Harris II

$10 Kyle Stowers

$10 Bryan Reynolds

$10 Anthony Santander

$10 Kristian Campbell

$9 T.J. Friedl

$9 Cedric Mullins

$9 Lourdes Gurriel Jr.

$9 Adolis García

$9 Spencer Steer

$9 Josh Lowe

Santander's home run count last year was seven higher than it should have been, per Statcast, so the power drop isn't a shock. It can also be stressful to change teams on a big contract, the pressure that comes standard. With strikeout and walk rates moving in the wrong direction, this is the classic case of a player who's likely pressing. Moving forward, I'd bet on something around a .240 average, but with 20-24 homers to come.

We asked just two things of Scott two months ago — hit for a reasonable average and run rabbit, run. So far so good: a tidy 11-for-12 on swipes, with a .288 average and .355 OBP. Now it's fair to wonder if the Cardinals will consider promoting Scott in the lineup; he's been eighth or ninth just about all year.

Tier 4: Some Plausible Upside

$8 Mike Yastrzemski

$8 JJ Bleday

$8 Josh Smith

$7 Evan Carter

$7 Austin Hays

$7 Tyler O'Neill

$7 Dylan Moore

$6 Trevor Larnach

$6 Taylor Ward

$6 Jorge Soler

$6 Willi Castro

$5 Dylan Crews

$5 Miguel Andújar

$5 Jonathan India

$5 Michael Toglia

$5 Maikel Garcia

$4 Jake Meyers

$4 Harrison Bader

$4 Ceddanne Rafaela

$4 Sal Frelick

$4 Alec Burleson

$4 Chandler Simpson

$3 Max Kepler

$3 Kyle Isbel

$3 Andrew McCutchen

$3 Joc Pederson

Carter was a big deal two years ago, then hit the struggles that befall so many glittering prospects. I can't unsee that he was the No. 3-4 batter for the Rangers when they swept to the championship back in 2023. He's still just 22 and he was considered a top 5 prospect a year ago. His plate-discipline stats were good during the Triple-A reset, everything else was pedestrian. But sometimes you have to simply bet on talent. The light could go on at any moment.

Simpson is another rabbit who just needs to hit for an ordinary average to mark his territory on our rosters. He's grabbed seven bags on eight attempts over 20 games; this roughly equates to 56 on a full season. He's slugging .301, about what we expected. If this type of specialist is going to justify a roster spot, he needs to dominate in the area where he's skilled. Simpson can check that box. He's chasing a little more than we'd like, though his K/BB stats are in a good place.