There were 13 outfield-eligible players worth at least $20 in the FanGraphs Player Rater in 2026, just two fewer than the first base spot. If you remember that you only need to start one first baseman (and potentially a corner infielder and DH) while you might need to start as many as five outfielders at a time, well, you can see why this is problematic. That's not to say the outfield is somehow a wasteland for Fantasy right now.
First base was unusually strong in 2026, but in 2025, there were three times as many $20 players with outfield eligibility as at first base. And it's worth noting that the 13 $20 outfielders in 2026 are actually a few more than 2025's nine. On the whole, I look at outfield as a position with a decent amount of depth in a three-outfielder, 12-team league.
You should be able to draft a full lineup without feeling too bad about your outfield options in that formula. Once you start getting into five-outfielder leagues, and especially deeper leagues with 15 teams, it starts to feel a lot more thin. That's to be expected, of course, but it's important to keep that in mind when you're preparing for the 2027 season.
You don't have to make the position a priority in every draft, but if you aren't cognizant of it, you could end up with a real weakness in those deeper leagues. For more on the state of the outfield position, check out Scott White's rankings and thoughts on the top 20 in his way-too-early rankings for 2027 here. "Marginal player signs with the Rockies and has a Coors Field-inflated career season" used to be a pretty reliable archetype.
Still, the Rockies have given Fantasy players little to get excited about in recent years. Jake McCarthy stands out as a notable exception, as his contact-and-speed profile proved to be a perfect fit for Coos Field. We're talking about relatively easy career-best production across the board, in a way that feels relatively obvious in retrospect.
I don't have a ton of faith that this would prove replicable in any other ballpark — the gap between his .321 expected wOBA and his .349 actual mark was the 20th biggest in baseball — but it works there. As long as he isn't traded, McCarthy is a good bet to replicate his 2026 success. I also want to highlight Harris and Merrill, because it feels very natural to group them together.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
