Outfielders: Four Up, Two Down And Hello Addison Barger

As we chug towards the halfway mark of the season later this month, let’s take a step back and check out who’s hot and who’s not. The “Not” guys really don’t merit much action, I just thought it was worth noting their overall good stat lines don’t tell the whole story. This also isn’t at all inclusive, it’s just a dive into a handful of six outfielders that piqued my interest. Without further ado…..

Four Up!

Addison Barger

There’s this really old, great album by a band named “Squeeze” called “Argy Bargy”. It both sounds like a nickname for Addison Barger if he lived in England, and also what I said when I hit up his Statcast page.

Wow, that’s a lot of bright red. Barger was a prospect of some note for the Jays, but his 225 PA’s for them in 2024 did not exactly jump off the page. He hit .197 with 7 homers, 2 steals, and a .262 wOBA with nothing noteworthy in the skills stats. He started the year in AAA and in 45 PA’s hit just .211, but his EV exploded to 96.3, with a HardHit% of 57.7%, and got the call up. He profiled as a strong side platoon guy who can handle 3rd and corner OF, and got his big opening when an Andres Gimenez injury bumped Ernie Clement from 3B to 2B. Gimenez is back, but OFs Dalton Varsho and Anthony Santander are now out, so there are plenty of openings at the Blue Jays Inn these days. Plus Barger’s play has cemented his role even if/when the squad gets fully healthy. He has 7 homers in 150 PA’s, with a .268/.327/.507 triple slash and he’s getting excellent fielding grades. 

Can this last? The pop looks absolutely legit, and the hit tool looks fine. He has above average speed, though has never shown much inclination to run. But as a 4 category guy hitting near the top of a decent lineup, he belongs on rosters in every format. 

Ceddanne Rafaela

The Red Sox CF does not exactly jump off the Fantasy Baseball page. I get that he’s a super valuable real life player. Statcast pegs him as 100th Percentile in CF, and he’s a plus fielding middle infielder when needed as well. But hitting? Well, he hit .252 last season, with 15 homers, 19 steals, 70 runs, and 75 RBI’s. That really only adds value in deep leagues. To do much with the 86.2 EV he carried, you’d need excellent contact skills. But Ceddanne had a 79.2% Z-Contact% with 26.2% K%. He has 87th Percentile Sprint Speed, but rarely walks. What are we doing here?

Well, he hit homers in 3 consecutive games this week, so I took a peek. And he’s made some serious improvements this season, especially lately. Yes, his walkoff homer on Wednesday traveled all of 308 feet. Thank you, Pesky Pole. But Ceddanne has parlayed a small increase in bat speed, from 70.1 MPH to 70.9, into greatly increased power.

OK, he’s not Aaron Judge, and he still chases WAY too much (2nd percentile in fact) and rarely walks. But that’s more palatable when it comes with 90 EV and 75th percentile LA Sweet Spot%. He has 21 barrels, meaning he could have more like 11 homers (yes, it doesn’t exactly work that way). His K% is down to 19.4%, albeit on a 15.2% SwStr% that suggests it will likely go up.

I like where this is headed, maybe a 20-20 guy without the batting average drain. It would really help if he could move up in the batting order, but that does not look imminent. Hey, baby steps!

Kody Clemens

Year 2000 Me would not imagine I would someday heap praise upon anyone in the Clemens Family, but here we go. Kody Clemens has bounced around MLB for the last 4 seasons to very little note, first on the Tigers and then the Phillies, before a totally below-the-radar trade to the Twins in late April. 

Minnesota Nice has unlocked something, as Clemens has slashed .253/.354/.554 in the Upper Midwest with 6 homers in 97 PA’s, fully backed by a 95.1 EV and 56.5% HardHit%. And encouragingly, he’s tapped into that power while maintaining good plate skills. He’s walking at a 10.3% clip, and his 20% Whiff% and 23.5% Chase% are both excellent. He’s also versatile, both in real life as he can provide solid D at  2B, 1B, and corner OF, and in Fantasy where he has eligibility in all 3.

Now before getting too stoked here, keep in mind he’s now a 29 year old lefty who only gets run as a strong side platoon bat. And if you’ve ever rostered a lefty in Minnesota, you likely have Rocco Baldelli PTSD. Clemens has yet to start vs. a lefty, and will often get pinch hit for when a southpaw comes in. Encouragingly, though, he has remained a regular vs. righties even as the Twins have gotten healthier. He’s a deep league viable play, preferably in daily leagues or in NFBC or a similar format that lets you sit him in half weeks filled with lefty SPs.

Michael Conforto

OK, I know, I know. It’s patently ridiculous to give an Up Arrow to Conforto as the Dodgers free agent outfielder continues to have a disappointing Fantasy season. And that’s a crazy understatement; it’s an unmitigated Roto disaster if you rostered him all year. 3 homers and 10 RBI’s? I’m guessing a week does not go by without a player or five topping that. And it comes with a .168 batting average. 

If 10 RBI’s through 2+ months sounds impossible when you play on the Dodgers, well, it does take some doing. Conforto did not have a hit with a runner in scoring position in either April or May.

He’s an obvious regression candidate. But of course, that begs the question “regression to what?”

Well, what if I told you he’s actually hitting quite well already? At least lately. In the last month, he actually has .377 xwOBA, with a 92.4 EV, 49.1% HardHit%, and 13.6% BB% vs. just a 19.3% K%. He has 7 barrels, but just one homer to show for it. His xBA of .235 isn’t actually good, but it’s better than his .211 average over that stretch.

Expected stats are descriptive, not predictive. His skills over the past month suggest he’s hitting like the 25 homer/80 RBI/80 run hitter with no speed and a meh batting average that we expected. That has value for an OF-5 in a 15 team league when you remember he does play for the Dodgers, but I would roster only him as such.. As for shallower leagues, I would absolutely watch and wait for the actual numbers to perk up.

Two Down

Teoscar Hernandez

Teoscar got off to a monster start in 2025, batting .315 as of May 5th, with 9 homers and a whopping 34 RBI’s in 33 games. He then suffered a groin strain, but missed just 2 weeks. All good, right? Not so much, lately. He’s hit just .185 since then, with 1 homer and 9 RBI’s in 17 games. 

It’s a bit of a mixed bag under the hood. His SwStr% has ballooned from 13.8% pre-injury to 18.4% after, bumping his K% from 18.4% to 34.8%. Ouch. On the flip side, his EV has exploded from 86.9 to 92.5, and his Barrel% is up from 10.3% to 14.6%. Perhaps he had “luck” on his side early on as his first 11 barrels produced 9 homers, while his last 6 have begat just one. Or perhaps not, as he has a .295 xwOBA since his return. He’s in a funk now.

Teoscar has a long track record as an excellent hitter, so this is all almost certainly just random variation over small samples. Maybe he returned from injury too quickly, though who really knows. His K% was unusually low for him early in the season, as was his EV. It should all even out, and we’re left with a .270 hitter with 30 home run power hitting early or middle in a monstrous lineup. There’s no action to take here unless someone in your trading league reacts to a few bad weeks and wants to sell.

Jackson Merrill

Like Teoscar, Merrill started the season on fire, got hurt, and then has underwhelmed a bit. Unlike Teoscar, the Before Injury phase was really, really hot, in an extremely short time, while the cooler stretch really isn’t all that bad. 

In his 1st 10 games, Merrill hit .378 with 3 homers and 10 RBI’s and a steal, in other words, almost a full season of Conforto’s production packed into a week. It came with a 93.1 EV and fantastic 87% Contact%. That’s not just Zone Contact, it includes everything.

In 28 games since his return, Merrill has added just 2 more homers. He’s still a really good player, with a .283 average and 110 wRC+ playing plus defense in Centerfield as a 22 year old.  But in a world that includes Pete Crow-Armstrong and rookie Merrill himself (.292, 24 homers, 16 steals), it’s a little underwhelming.

His HardHit% since his return is just 32.9%, vs. 43.9% last year, and his EV has dropped from 90.4 to 86.3, while his K% is up to 23.5%. 

We really have no way of knowing whether this is a new lower “norm” for Merrill. I mean, these are still very good numbers (and again, he’s 22), but it’s not superstar level. Unlike Teoscar, there’s no extended track record to fall back on. His big dip YoY, as per Statcast, is in his performance vs. sliders. They accounted for just 13.4% of the pitches he saw last year, and he had an excellent .357 wOBA against them. In 202,5 he’s seen a few more (14.4%) and has produced just a .279 wOBA.