With the top 40 outfielders for 2026 fantasy baseball, we’ve finished all the hitter recaps. We meaning me, but I’ll include you. No, that’s not a cue to try to hold my hand. Why are you now patting my butt? Don’t muss my hair! The pitching recap will begin next. You can hardly wait. No, you! To recap, the end of the season rankings are based on our Fantasy Baseball Player Rater. I felt the easiest way to keep it objective would be to go this route. This way when I say a player finished 30th and I ranked them 23rd in the preseason, it carries more weight than Cal Raleigh’s backside. Anyway, here’s the top 40 outfielders for 2026 fantasy baseball and how they compare to where I originally ranked them:
21. Jac Caglianone – See his recap at the top 20 1st basemen for 2026 fantasy baseball.
22. Bryan Reynolds – Ya know what he’s made his specialty? Being valuable for fantasy while not seeming it. He’s actually on the perfect team for that. Bunch of Pirates hitters are like that. It’s a good way to acquire players for cheap, I guess. No one wants Ryan O’Hearn? Thank you very much. No one cares for Reynolds? He’s one of us. Jacob Gonzalez? How about Jacob Gon-to-Pittsburgh-les. I was talking about real baseball with those examples, but that’s true for fantasy too. If you traded Riley Greene for Reynolds, people would’ve thought you might’ve lost your mind. In fact (Grey’s got more!), if you said, “In my league, I can trade a player after the season for another and we retroactively change the stats for this past season,” I bet you could trade multiple guys below for Reynolds and people would think you’re nuts. Preseason Rank #53, 2026 Projections: 72/20/74/.249/6 in 586 ABs, Final Numbers: 102/17/72/.261/9 in 595 ABs
23. Kody Clemens – See his recap at the top 20 1st basemen for 2026 fantasy baseball.
24. Julio Rodriguez – Saberhagenmetrics will tell you JRod isn’t a 1st or 2nd half hitter, he’s an every other year hitter. Saberhagenmetricians will also only tell you that every other year. It’s going to be hard to not get back in on him next year, I do regret to inform. Also, this year of his was so bad and he was still a top 25 outfielder year. My God, hitting had the ick this year. Preseason Rank #2, 2026 Projections: 103/32/91/.271/26 in 612 ABs, Final Numbers: 69/22/71/.247/22 in 596 ABs
25. Riley Greene – I like Riley Greene so take this with a grain of salt — his final stats, 21 homers and three steals, should be barely a top 50 outfielder. I don’t care he hit .280. What on earth is that? 21 homers and three steals? Call Riley Greene: Finding Nimmo-in-my-stats. (By the way, Nimmo is an excellent example of what Texas does to a hitter’s stats. He is a lock for 21/3 every year, and this year he went 14/7. Bring the fences in!) Preseason Rank #17, 2026 Projections: 76/30/88/.257/5 in 581 ABs, Final Numbers: 79/21/75/.280/3 in 511 ABs
26. Ceddanne Rafaela – See his recap at the top 20 2nd basemen for 2026 fantasy baseball.
27. Wilyer Abreu – At-bats projections for Wilyer are low because I was worried he wouldn’t face lefties, and, after the season where he faced everyone, I’m wondering if he can hit righties. In 407 ABs vs. righties, 18 HRs, .226. In 190 ABs vs. lefties, 6 HRs, .295. Hmm, that’s weird. At the end of the day, he seemed to do exactly as expected with just extra runs and RBIs, due to more opportunities. Wanna cry about hitting last year some more? I projected him for 21/7/.252 and he went 24/8/.248. I ranked him in the preseason with those stats for the 64th best outfielder and he was 27th. You could feed chocolate to the outfielders because they don’t have any dog in them. Preseason Rank #64, 2026 Projections: 56/21/65/.252/7 in 412 ABs, Final Numbers: 81/24/76/.248/8 in 597 ABs
28. Chandler Simpson – It’s hilarious I projected him for two homers. I basically nailed his projections but projecting Simpson for two homers is like projecting Aaron Judge for two homers. Give Simpson 45,000 at-bats and he might not hit two homers. In fact, check out the post after the projections. Preseason Rank #32, 2026 Projections: 83/2/45/.290/50 in 461 ABs, Final Numbers: 66/0/38/.306/46 in 571 ABs
you ever stop to gawk at Chandler Simpson’s Statcast page? He’s never barreled a ball, in his career
— Razzball (@razzball.bsky.social) September 18, 2026 at 11:36 AM
29. Juan Soto – Crazy to now see the top ten outfielder projections I gave them. No one had that kind of year. Projected for 123 runs? Ha! 112 RBIs would’ve almost led the majors. At the end of the day though, there’s no excuses for Sexy Dr. Pepper’s runs and RBIs. Not even the Mets. 63 runs is almost half of what he did in 2025. 68 RBIs is almost 40 off 2025. Under ten steals? Soto killed my Tout Wars team (others didn’t help). He even had his worst OBP year. Worse than his rookie year! Coming off his best year in 2025, he had his worst. Preseason Rank #3, 2026 Projections: 123/42/112/.282/12 in 542 ABs, Final Numbers: 63/27/68/.275/9 in 400 ABs
30. Ezequiel Duran – See his recap at the top 20 1st basemen for 2026 fantasy baseball.
31. Jo Adell – Just look at this: He ended up with 70 more ABs and ten less homers, but ended eight ranks higher than the preseason. Now you can write all of this off as me being a moron and not ranking correctly, but I’m telling you Adell’s stats should not be anywhere near 31st best outfielder. Look at this, Adell’s 2025 season: 63/37/98/.236/5 in 526 ABs. That was the 25th best outfielder last year. This year that would’ve earned (roughly, because no one was exactly same so I had to Frankenstein the numbers together): $9.9 in HRs, -0.2 runs, 7.5 RBIs, -0.2 average, -0.5 steals = $16.5, which was same as Daylen Lile, the 20th best outfielder. So, we lost five outfielders through 25 outfielders. Not great! Preseason Rank #39, 2026 Projections: 74/33/86/.241/7 in 538 ABs, Final Numbers: 70/23/94/.240/5 in 603 ABs
32. Luke Keaschall – See his recap at the top 20 2nd basemen for 2026 fantasy baseball.
33. Cody Bellinger – He went 17/12 with 70-ish runs and RBIs and he’s a top 33 outfielder. Just silly lack of hitting. Cody was smoking this past season but it was not the ball. Every player I look at and it’s the same story: Lower runs and RBIs from the previous year. Guys who were better this year: PCA, Yordan and the Rice Bowl. Guys who were worse: Everyone else. Preseason Rank #18, 2026 Projections: 84/25/84/.274/11 in 533 ABs, Final Numbers: 73/17/73/.264/12 in 496 ABs
34. Zack Gelof – See his recap at the top 20 2nd basemen for 2026 fantasy baseball.
35. Kyle Tucker – This is the part of the outfielders where you were either good in a small sample or awful with a ton of at-bats. I’ll let you guess which Tucker was. I said Cody was bad for a 17/12 season, what do you think of a top 15 overall pick who went 17/12 with a .233 average? Meh? Or incredibly meh? Or “don’t insult meh, this just sucks?” Think a lot of hitting can bounce back next year, but I see no reason in Tucker’s stats to think that for him. Even in the playoffs, where he was actually hitting, but what was he hitting? Bloops the other way. When he drove the ball, it was to the gap. Preseason Rank #8, 2026 Projections: 86/29/91/.271/23 in 511 ABs, Final Numbers: 90/17/70/.233/12 in 540 ABs
36. Chase DeLauter – As I was saying in the Andy Pages blurb in the top 20 outfielders, it’s about intention, and I told everyone to draft Canzone, DeLauter and Wilyer in the same tier. Also, as mentioned previously, good in a small sample or terrible with a lot of ABs? DeLauter was closer to good in small sample. Decent HardHit% and great amount of contact and walks. The lack of fly balls and meh Launch Angle are concerning, but, Chase, have you heard of Driveline? Preseason Rank #63, 2026 Projections: 43/20/51/.271/1 in 403 ABs, Final Numbers: 62/16/67/.287/11 in 495 ABs
37. Mike Trout – Stole the most bags since he was 27 in 2019 when he stole 11, and had the lowest HR/FB since 2011 when he was a rookie and his underlying stats are a wish in the fountain of youth that goes unanswered. He still has four more years on his contract, and I don’t think the fountain of youth is real. It’s incredibly damning that he had 100 more at-bats than my projections and fewer homers. [histrionically pinches closed nose from a smell] Preseason Rank #51, 2026 Projections: 63/24/66/.231/2 in 404 ABs, Final Numbers: 86/22/54/.242/11 in 513 ABs
38. Ronald Acuña Jr. – Appropriate that Tildaddy and Trout are next to each other. The old guard and the “Don’t tell me he’s the old guard too, please, tell me he’s still the new guard.” Also, they could be considered the “Life comes at you fast” tier of outfielders. I did a google for Acuña and found an article from 2024’s preseason about how he seems headed to the HOF even as a 25-year-old. Don’t revisit that, author, it’s not looking good. Preseason Rank #4, 2026 Projections: 108/30/61/.288/22 in 577 ABs, Final Numbers: 61/20/55/.255/21 in 408 ABs
39. Dominic Canzone – This is another one in the DeLauter camp of being good because of smaller sample vs. being meh but with a lot of ABs. Canzone was not my highest end-of-the-season sleeper, but prolly the one I’m most proud of because I heard such crickets when I posted it. I think even Mariners fans were a little bit like, “That’s definitely a guy who is in our depth chart.” He went 11/3/.300 last year in 243 ABs and I called that sleeper. That’s a booya I’m taking. Preseason Rank #62, 2026 Projections: 56/20/61/.267/8 in 406 ABs, Final Numbers: 60/23/77/.264/2 in 477 ABs
40. Mauricio Dubon – See his recap at the top 20 shortstops for 2026 fantasy baseball.
