Outfield is typically one of the deepest positions in fantasy baseball. On the surface, that would suggest that we could wait to fill the spot. Therein lies its unique nature. Outfield isn’t “one spot.” It’s multiple. Many leagues require three in a starting lineup. Some require as many as five. Couple with that with utility spot, and we can potentially roster six different outfielders in our starting lineup.

This isn’t a problem. Outfield tends to produce some of the better hitters in the league. The struggle for a fantasy manager is in determining when to fill each of the slots with outfielders. After the first few tiers, we will see numerous viable options, many of whom have a path to outperform their projections — on that note, the letter grades shown in the tables below were driven by FantasyPros’ projections.

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2020 Recap

As evidenced by the introduction of this article, we would expect a handful of outfielders to occupy the bulk of a prior season’s top-10 or top-12 players. This was not the case in 2020. According to FantasyPros’ Points leaders, Marcell Ozuna and Mike Trout were the only two outfield-eligible players to finish the year in the top-12.

Given the unorthodox nature of the 2020 season, we have to cast this information aside, right?

Not exactly.

Many of the players who outperformed the mass of outfielders were not a surprise. Put another way, they weren’t flukes in a shortened season. We have to respect the possibility that, while outfield remains incredibly deep, there were other positions who reached higher ceilings in 2020.

Therefore, outfielders thrived in holding a stable floor.

Immediately after the top-12 players, we find Teoscar Hernandez, Mookie Betts, Ronald Acuna Jr., Nick Castellanos, and Luis Robert as five-of-the-next-six highest-scoring fantasy players. Kyle Lewis, Will Myers, Trent Grisham, Christian Yelich, and Brandon Lowe help round out the top-30.

As you can see, we have a fair mix of high draft choices and sleepers who all produced as some of the best fantasy hitters in the game.

2021 at a Glance

Everyone who is entering a draft in 2021 is faced with the same question, “How much should I weigh the 2020 season into my 2021 expectations?” This is especially true with outfielders.

As you see in the 2020 Recap section above, many outfielders were supplanted atop the leaderboard by players from other positions. Indeed, one influence in this was the emergence of other hitters like Jose Abreu and Fernando Tatis Jr., but a large portion was simply due to some names suffering from “down” years — e.g. Christian Yelich, Cody Bellinger, and Juan Soto via injury. To repeat, we will have to consider how much influence we will allow 2020’s numbers to make on our 2021 expectation.

According to FantasyPros’ ADP, people are certainly not discounting outfielders, as they make up four-of-the-first-five picks. This will lead to the same top-heavy group that we have seen over the years. Once again, the position being so deep allows for fantasy managers to pass on an outfielder early — taking roster construction into consideration — and still fill the position later with quality players.

Grade Legend*

• A: A no-doubt stud capable of winning you a category
• B: A solid, consistent contributor
• C: Won’t lose you the category, but won’t win it, either
• D: You can do better here
• F: You’re getting NOTHING

(*Grades listed are relative to the position and take positional depth into consideration.)

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Mario Mergola is a featured writer at FantasyPros and BettingPros and the creator and content-editor of Sporfolio. For more from Mario, check out his archive and follow him @MarioMergola.