Dynasty Dark Arts: Dementors in the Outfield: Top 100 Discussion

So here we are somewhere in Snape’s cauldron among our top hundred divining the future of the outfield position in fantasy baseball.

Wild things have happened already. I knew it might get weird when I saw the ghost of Shoeless Joe while I was watching Parasite.

Sorry, Sev: while we were watching Parasite.

The other day, I got asked about Luis Matos and wound up mentioning Ronald Acuna Jr.

Then dug deeper down into that rabbit hole and ate the mushrooms that made the idea grow.

That was after people got mad at me for some inadvertent Trout shade. I blame Christian Yelich for being better than him at roto.

Hmm, what else?

Oh yeah there was that day I saved cousin Dudley from two huge floaty randos at the playground.

Before we case the basement to see what’s behind the walls, let me say something I haven’t.

I think you should try to get Hedbert Perez in your dynasty leagues.

I’ve been thinking we should talk about this for a long time, but I get locked into projects and moods, you know? I don’t always make time for us to talk.

In this post, you’ll likely come away with the idea that I think Luis Matos is a must-own player at his likely cost across our game. That’s true. But I think Hedbert Perez is right there with him. We might still be a few months ahead of the wave on him. Same for Heriberto Hernandez. These are must-haves for me.

Where I don’t get them, I’m afraid I’m going to regret it.

Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of my life.

Okay, that’s that, I think. I’ll paste the list here then more words at the bottom.

Rank 4/26	Rank 4/22	Player	Age	Team
1	1	Ronald Acuña Jr.	22	ATL
2	2	Christian Yelich	28	MIL
3	3	Mike Trout	28	LAA
4	4	Cody Bellinger	24	LAD
5	5	Juan Soto	21	WAS
6	6	Mookie Betts	27	LAD
7	7	Yordan Alvarez	22	HOU
8	8	Austin Meadows	24	TB
9	9	Luis Robert	22	CHW
10	10	Bryce Harper	27	PHI
11	11	Victor Robles	22	WAS
12	12	Eloy Jimenez	23	CHW
13	13	Jorge Soler	28	KC
14	14	Aaron Judge	27	NYY
15	15	Jo Adell	21	LAA
16	16	Starling Marte	31	ARI
17	17	JD Martinez	32	BOS
18	18	Joey Gallo	26	TEX
19	19	George Springer	30	HOU
20	20	CJ Abrams	19	SD
21	21	Julio Rodriguez	19	SEA
22	22	Giancarlo Stanton	30	NYY
23	23	Dylan Carlson	21	STL
24	24	Ramon Laureano	25	OAK
25	25	Jasson Dominguez	17	NYY
26	27	Byron Buxton	26	MIN
27	28	Charlie Blackmon	33	COL
28	29	Kyle Schwarber	27	CHC
29	26	Michael Conforto	27	NYM
30	31	Jarred Kelenic	20	SEA
31	30	Oscar Mercado	25	CLE
32	32	Kyle Tucker	23	HOU
33	35	Franmil Reyes	24	CLE
34	41	Nick Castellanos	28	CIN
35	33	Oneil Cruz	21	PIT
36	34	Kristian Robinson	19	ARI
37	36	Bryan Reynolds	25	PIT
38	38	Andrew Benintendi	25	BOS
39	39	Lourdes Gurriel	26	TOR
40	40	Eddie Rosario	28	MIN
41	44	Willie Calhoun	25	TEX
42	42	Marcell Ozuna	29	ATL
43	43	David Dahl	26	COL
44	46	Corbin Carroll	19	ARI
45	47	Trent Grisham	23	SD
46	45	Trey Mancini	28	BAL
47	48	Brennen Davis	20	CHC
48	37	Tommy Pham	32	SD
49	49	Michael Brantley	32	HOU
50	50	Max Kepler	27	MIN
51	51	Nick Senzel	24	CIN
52	52	Alex Verdugo	23	BOS
53	53	Luis Matos	18	SF
54	54	Nick Solak	25	TEX
55	55	Trevor Larnach	23	MIN
56	56	Zac Veen	18	??
57	62	Heriberto Hernandez	20	TEX
58	58	Teoscar Hernandez	27	TOR
59	60	Avisail Garcia	28	MIL
60	61	Mark Canha	31	OAK
61	63	Sam Hilliard	26	COL
62	57	Garrett Mitchell	21	??
63	64	Aaron Hicks	30	NYY
64	59	Yasiel Puig	29	??
65	66	Erick Pena	17	KC
66	69	Nomar Mazara	24	CHW
67	65	Austin Hays	24	BAL
68	67	Andrew McCutchen	33	PHI
69	68	Wil Myers	29	SD
70	71	Riley Greene	19	DET
71	70	Yoshi Tsutsugo	28	TB
72	72	Drew Waters	21	ATL
73	73	Cristian Pache	21	ATL
74	74	Mallex Smith	26	SEA
75	75	Alek Thomas	19	ARI
76	76	Hedbert Perez	17	MIL
77	77	Mitch Haniger	29	SEA
78	79	Gregory Polanco	28	PIT
79	80	Adam Eaton	31	WAS
80	81	Ian Happ	25	CHC
81	78	Randy Arozarena	25	TB
82	82	AJ Pollock	32	LAD
83	83	David Peralta	32	ARI
84	84	Mike Yastrzemski	29	SF
85	85	Kyle Lewis	24	SEA
86	86	Monte Harrison	24	MIA
87	88	Aristides Aquino	26	CIN
88	91	Lorenzo Cain	34	MIL
89	92	Gilberto Jimenez	19	BOS
90	93	Jaylin Davis	25	SF
91	87	Jesse Winker	26	CIN
92	94	Randall Grichuck	28	TOR
93	89	Justin Upton	32	LAA
94	90	Shogo Akiyama	32	CIN
95	95	Franchy Cordero	25	SD
96	96	Jesus Sanchez	22	TB
97	97	Taylor Trammell	22	SD
98	99	JJ Bleday	22	MIA
99	101	Heston Kjerstad	21	??
100	108	Seth Brown	27	OAK

Thoughts from the reddit thread:

Jacob_Bob asks:

Luis over Eloy. How confident are you on that holding up?

Good question. Eloy can’t steal bases, so LuBob doesn’t have to hit a ton to best him in the long run.

I dealt Eloy for LuBob last summer in a 20 team dynasty. Got back a 2nd round FYPD pick kicker in the deal but was ready to do it straight up then (June 2019).

Benny Jetss asks:

Assuming Yordan Alvarez plays enough games to keep his OF eligibility (or gain it, if you play on ESPN), where does he rank on this list?

Got this question a few times, which made me wonder how I could include him without putting him in the standard list bc a lot of people play at Yahoo and ESPN.

I’d put him just after Mookie but would be wondering how long that will hold if Yordan is his 2019 self for the foreseeable future . . . how long Mookie will run and where he’ll land in FA.

*As you can see this is part of the past now, but the possibility of universal DH has me thinking about other non-outfielders who might pick up some eligibility. It goes without saying that Kevin Crons gain value on a DH-everywhere planet, but he and others like him (Edwin Rios, to pull another name from Dan Richards’ exit velocity sleeper piece “Best Cups of Coffee”) might gain some surprise eligibility in these lower-bar leagues.

hum_babe asks:

This is by far the highest I’ve seen Heriberto Hernandez ranked. Any reasoning behind that? The numbers are crazy but not many people seem to be putting stock into him.

He’s just the perfect fantasy prospect in a lot of senses. Or would be if he had speed. But if he could run he could probably defend or at least fake it in a corner outfield spot.

As is, he’s just a hitter, which helps keep his profile low like Yordan.

But that’s mostly fine for our game. Sure it’s not ideal if he’s DH only at the age of 21, but if he’s 21 and mashing major league pitching, we’ll probably make it work.

I’m not comping the two, skills or physicality wise, but I just love Heriberto’s swing, and all the numbers back it up. I mean the metrics back the hips-trunk-hands synchronicity and barrel hand-eye he shows in the box.

I don’t fully buy low minors estimated fly ball distances, but his put him right near the top of the minors most years. He’s got a lot to prove against better spin and velocity, but the jumping on point is now while the cost is a roster spot or a meek offer.

alwaysmyfault wonders:

How can they justify Yelich ahead of Trout?

Same age, and Trout has a consistent track record of outperforming Yelich.

Fair points.

For starters, I looked to the immediate past.

Trout wasn’t real close to Yelich in 5×5 roto value last season.

They were closer the year before, but Yelich had 228 R+RBI and Trout had 180. That’s an enormous gap.

Yelich also beat him in batting average .326 to .312.

Last year’s BA split was .329 to .291—another monstrous advantage to Yelich’s teams.

Trout caught and passed him in R+RBI 214 to 197

but stole just 11 bags to Yelich’s 30.

Across two full seasons with similar PA totals, Yelich has been the better roto player, and it’s not super close. I mention in the intro it felt weird to rank Trout 3rd, but ours is game of numbers not names, and unless you’re in an OBP league and perhaps even if you are, Yelich has earned the edge. Certainly helps that his park is elite for lefty bats, but that ain’t changing anytime soon. Also might hurt Trout a little that Joe Maddon’s in town. He’s not big into the stolen base, and it seems Trout has soured some on running anyway. Plus Yelich was 30 for 32 in stolen base attempts and has been incredibly efficient there for three straight seasons.

Dude knows when to take his bases.

redditnym123456789:

no room for Puig? I respect the list, but I think there’s too much foaming at the mouth over guys who haven’t played a single game in the bigs… even some “can’t miss” guys like Jo Adell have red flags (which is partly why Jo couldn’t make the jump from Triple-A last year). Maybe my perspective is skewed since I play in a custom points league and Puig has been nothing but solid, but I would trade some purely speculative, high-upside, single-A guy like Corbin Carroll for Puig’s immediate value in a second.

(edited to clarify my original “no room for Puig?” troll-esque comment)

^^This human is a net positive on the internet: a unique, endanged species. Full credit to anyone who identifies some troll-feel in their words and tries to edit it out. I didn’t even think the original content was troll-ish. It’s a fair question. But man, just made feel good to read.

Anyway, perhaps I should clarify somewhere in the lede that it’s a 5×5 roto list.

I lean toward the math that suggests 1 stolen base = 3 home runs in approximate roto value in the current paradigm.

Which is just not how points leagues operate.

In dynasty it’s scary for me to see a guy get ignored completely in free agency. Suggests he could be nearing his last life on the job market, mostly bc so few teams prioritize winning in the near term vs. building long-term, controllable assets.

redditnym123456789:

ahh, yeah I get that… I’ve seen Puig’s disappearance into free agency as a market inefficiency, because Puig is indisputably decent-to-good from a GM’s perspective… either he’s asking too much or GMs are offering too little. once there’s actually a playoff race, something’ll give. probably sooner too.

anyway. back to your list. good stuff. Roto is a foreign language to me, but your top 50 definitely passes the sniff test

Yankees777:

I’m dynasty I’m taking the young top prospects over Puig everytime

redditnym123456789:

like yeah, I’d trade him for Adell/Robert/Julio/Kelenic… but some of these marginal Top 100 prospects???

Not sure which prospects you’re referencing, but if you have Puig and can get Corbin Carroll for him, I think you’ll be happy you did.

Not loving my tone here. Should’ve edited. But I mean it insofar as Puig is heading one direction and Carroll the other. Plus you can get something along with Carroll in most leagues, I think, and then pick up a FA outfielder who’s not all that net-net different than Puig. Maybe not today, but when the games start, roster spots have incredible value for speculation and streaming buys. (Cough cough Aquino cough). In traditional dynasty, MLB free agents are available at most positions most of the time, and new players are coming into opportunities most of the time. MLB spots get tight when you’re contending, so something like Puig for Carroll and a pick can be a great play. Especially if you’re paying close enough attention to stream hot hitters (with the help of the Stream-O-Nator, perhaps?).

Our final thoughts come courtesy of readrainbow:

Lots of faith in Soler

He was just so elite last time we saw him. Might even have a case to be higher.

.299/.411/.665 in the second half.

Got better as pitchers adjusted to him and circled him as the out they needed in that lineup.

Got better as they tried to get him to chase in various ways high low in and out.

If this version of Soler has a weakness, pitchers are struggling to exploit it.

Thanks for reading! Stay safe out there. Next 50 outfielders coming in hot!

I’m @theprospectitch on Twitter and reddit.

Oh and PS: I’m going to try and add some recommendations from time to time.

The End of the F***ing World on Netflix

Spy on Hulu (the one with Darren Boyd)

ZeroZeroZero on Prime

Spy is hilarious and fast.

ZZZ is just 70-grade stuff across the board.

The End of the F***ing World is an impressive blend of momentum, exigency, character, deflection and fun. Not in real time of course. The end of the world is bad. But the show. The show is excellent.