Jon Anderson's Early Outfield Tiers & Rankings for 2023 Fantasy Baseball

January 26, 2023

Jon Anderson gives his early outfield rankings for 2023 fantasy baseball. Who should you draft high and whose value has gone lower than expected?

Welcome back RotoBallers to my early 2023 fantasy baseball rankings and projections series! Today, we are covering the outfield, and it's a monster! Here is what we've done so far:

• Catcher
• First Base
• Second Base
• Shortstop
• Third Base

I am putting my top 80 or so outfielders into this, so we'd better get started.

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Tier 1 - Game Breakers

There is no shortage of outfielders you can grab first-round production from. By my count, there are 11 of them that I could see having massive seasons. However, these five do stand out a little bit above the rest due to their five-category upside.

True, you can't get steals out of Yordan - but I think you can get 50 homers and a .300 batting average - and you can't say that for anybody else besides Judge, so that's why he makes the top tier. I would be perfectly happy starting my team with any of these names, and most likely I will be in leagues where you have to field five outfielders. The position thins out pretty quickly so you want to be aggressive on the outfield in deep leagues.

Tier 2

Betts and Soto could and maybe should be in Tier 1, but I just think the upside is a little bit lower. With Betts, that's because his steals have slowed down a bit and he's not a real 40-homer threat. With Soto, it's because he takes so many walks and hits so many ground balls that it's tough to see a huge homer season from him unless he makes some approach changes.

Any of the top three there will fall into the second round, which is great. I might be a little higher than the field on the next three there, but I really like Schwarber's batting average potential with the shift gone and I love the 30-20 upside of Garcia and Robert.

Tier 3

This is the end of the elite crop of talent, but we have three more 20-20 guys here so it's tough not to love them. The batting average is down a bit once you get here, and I can't really see any of these guys clearing 30 homers - but you are getting production across the board from this group. I love getting one of them as my second outfielder.

Tier 4

We still have a big upside here in Tier 4, but you are giving up a category or taking on a lot of injury risk with all of these guys. I love Eloy if he can stay healthy, I think Teoscar's power and RBI potential are underrated - and I think he has an outside shot at 20 steals too if the new rule changes turn out to be a big impact.

With Marte, you have the questions about his declining steal rate and he's never been a confidence pick in the homers and RBI category, but he does a little bit of everything and did lead the league in steals in 2021. Buxton is just Buxton again, 30-20 upside again but hard to believe he can play a full year. Even with the 441 PA projection here, you can see what he's capable of.

Tier 5

I like this group a good amount, too. I really like Suzuki and Ward at their current cost, I think those are potential five-category performers there as lesser-known guys who showed huge upside in spurts last year. The rest of the tier is a little bit "boring," but all very solid picks at the right cost.

Tier 6

Now things open up. This is a mixed bag of guys. My favorites here are probably Riley Greene (love to see what he can do in year two), Ramon Laureano (underpriced after a tumultuous couple of years), and Kris Bryant (if he's healthy this year, he'll probably perform like a Tier 4 outfielder, and all the reports right now are that he's healthy).

Tier 7

And now you're onto guys you probably don't want to be starting in a standard league. You are giving up something big with each of them (mostly power), and there's not a ton of real upside in the group (except for Gonzalez as a young guy who played really well late last year).

Tier 8

More bench bats, but some upside re-appears. I think Kepler can get the batting average above .240 this year with the shift change, but admittedly this .264 projection is much too high. Then you have some sneaky power guys with Haniger, Conforto, Yastrzemski, and Pederson - but they all have playing time questions on that team.

Lane Thomas and Tommy Pham are probably better for fantasy than they are given credit for, so I am okay with them as reserve outfielders - but overall they're unexciting.

Tier 9

Now we're just into "the rest." There will probably be a few really good seasons that come out of this group, but I can't tell you who that will be with any amount of confidence.

The safety picks here are probably Pollock and Profar, and the upside goes to Kelenic, Bellinger, Yepez, and Yoshida (who I'm not even doing a projection for, I just have no idea).

Tier 10

And I round it out with these names. They are all either boring veterans who can do something for our team while they're playing or younger guys who could steal some bags if they find playing time.

Ruiz is interesting as a guy who will likely attempt steals at a rate higher than any other player in the league. The trade to Oakland also makes it more likely that he finds some playing time, but the guy doesn't seem like a Major League hitter at this point. It's possible that he still finds a way to steal 25-30 bags even if a lot of them are from pinch running. You could do worse for a 40th-round pick as a fifth or bench outfielder.

And that is the outfield for you. If you were looking for someone you didn't see, it's probably because I ranked them at their other position earlier in this series (Varsho, Lux, etc.). Hope this helps, thanks for reading!

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