March 20, 2016

Kyle Bishop fantasy baseball draft tips for finding undervalued outfielders. He analyzes the RotoBaller fantasy baseball rankings, using ADP to identify potential sleepers.

With draft season ramping up now, though, it seems like a good time to check our expert opinions against the wisdom of the crowds. Over the past few days we've highlighted some draft targets - undervalued players we like, with notable discrepancies between their ADP and how the staff here at RotoBaller views their 2016 value. Today we continue with some more outfielders.

If you’re a regular reader of RotoBaller (and how could someone as smart, funny, and handsome as you not be?), you’ve doubtless already checked out our rankings assistant tool. We released our final preseason updates, and the player news updates are coming in daily.

Note: Quoted figures are the players’ ranking at their position and not their overall ADP.

Outfielders We Prefer

Josh Reddick

ADP: 54th| RotoBaller (RB) Rank: 40th | My rank: 36th

Did you know that over the last four seasons, Reddick is 24th among all outfielders in home runs? He's got more than Matt Holliday, Shin-Soo Choo, and Alex Gordon among others. Back in 2012, he hit 32 homers, stole 11 bases, and totaled 170 R+RBI. Last season, he went 20/10 with 144 R+RBI. Of course, the intervening years were injury-plagued and not very good, but Reddick obviously has the talent to be a fantasy asset.

What's interesting is that his strikeout rate has steadily decreased over that four-year span. In 2012, Reddick whiffed on 22.4% of his trips to the plate. Last season, exactly half that. The secret? He quit swinging so much, particularly early in the count and at pitches low and away. Pretty simple, huh? Assuming health - admittedly a tricky thing with him - Reddick offers pop and speed in the back half of the draft.

Michael Conforto

ADP: 56th | RB Rank: 39th | My rank: 40th

Though he had fewer than 200 plate appearances above A-ball, the Mets were aggressive in promoting Conforto last July. Thrown into the fire of a pennant race, Conforto shined, putting together a .270/.335/.506 line with nine homers and 56 R+RBI in 56 games. The power was somewhat surprising, as his .236 ISO was well above the .165 mark he posted in his brief minor-league career. Conforto's junior season at Oregon State was a hitting clinic, as he posted a .345/.504/.547, but even that results in a lower ISO than his rookie season, as the slugging percentage was mainly driven by a high average.

So he's probably not going to maintain a 30 HR pace over a full season. As you might guess from his track record, though, he's a good bet to keep making hard contact. He produced a 22.6 LD% and a hard hit rate above 40% to go with solid plate discipline, so there's room to grow in the batting average department. Somewhere in the .280 - .290 range with 20 homers and what should be decent counting stats in a solid Mets lineup? Not a bad return in the late rounds.

Stephen Piscotty

ADP: 51st | RB Rank: 42nd | My rank: 39th

While the gap in their ADP figures has narrowed recently, Piscotty is still being drafted several rounds later than fellow buzzy sophomore Cardinals outfielder Randal Grichuk. He should be getting more love. Take a look at the batted ball distance leaderboards over at Baseball Heat Maps. There's Piscotty just outside the top 10, sandwiched between some guy named J.D. Martinez and the reigning AL MVP, Josh Donaldson. (Also Howie Kendrick, which...what?) Then consider that Piscotty posted this mark while hitting nearly 60 percent of his fly balls to the opposite field. Then note that Piscotty, per FanGraphs' Mike Podhorzer, posted a fairly remarkable .350 xBABIP.

Small sample size? Yes. Fluke? Maybe, but maybe not. Piscotty did make a conscious effort to alter his swing mechanics in the offseason in order to tap into more power. So far, at least, it appears to be working. Steamer is skeptical, of course, but that's based almost entirely on his good but not great minor league numbers. There's certainly enough upside here to justify taking a flier toward the end of the draft.

Delino DeShields

ADP: 58th | RB Rank: 48th | My rank: 49th

Even leaving aside their current price tags, I’d rather have DeShields than Billy Hamilton – an opinion that is reflected in my rankings and shared by none of my colleagues, save for Nick Mariano. Like Hamilton, DeShields has 80-grade speed and a 100 SB minor league season to his credit. Unlike The Hamburglar, however, he’s shown he can hit at the big-league level. While he only stole 25 bases as a rookie, he was on a pace for double that before suffering a hamstring injury. There’s no pop to be found here and only a middling batting average. But if DeShields remains near the top of the Rangers lineup, 100 runs and 40+ steals are on the table.

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