How to Survive the Outfield Avalanche

Leaning into playing time uncertainty can get you to the top of the mountain…

The Outfield Dilemma

Through the first eight rounds of Best Ball drafts—the first 96 picks—an average of 42 outfielders, 30 infielders, and 24 pitchers are selected.

Outfielders are taken at an incredibly high frequency for three major reasons:

1. There are significantly less outfielders than infielders or pitchers.

2. Three outfielders must start each week.

3. The quality of high upside outfielders typically cannot be found later in drafts.

These three reasons point to the issues of scarcity, roster construction, and opportunity cost.

There are many ways to draft, but my general rule of thumb is to have at least three outfielders by the eighth round.

This gives you a foundation at outfield with positional optionality later on in your draft. As in, you aren’t forced to look at only one position towards the end of your draft.

In some drafts, I draft outfielders early and often. For instance, I have a team with Juan Soto, Ronald Acuña Jr., Adolis Garcia, Lawrence Butler and Luis Robert. In this draft, I took five outfielders in the first seven rounds.

However, drafting outfielders early and often isn’t my advice on how to survive the avalanche. I think it’s a decent strategy that’s worth mixing in, but this strategy often feels like a gut punch.

My issue with it is that you’re passing on a ton of elite infield options. Underdog’s roster construction each week is 3 pitchers, 3 infielders, 3 outfielders and a flex.

Odds are that most weeks you’ll fill that flex spot with an infielder who plays everyday unless you hit the nuts in the outfield.

Last year, I had multiple teams with Bobby Witt Jr. and Gunnar Henderson on them that made the Best Ball playoffs. Even though this exact combination is no longer attainable—since they’re both first round picks—a Bobby Witt Jr./Vlad Guerrero Jr. start or a Gunnar Henderson/Vlad Guerrero Jr. start sounds pretty good to me if you’re still able to get at least three outfielders by the eighth round.

The projection system, The Bat X, projects Vlad as the fifth highest scoring player and the second highest infielder. So to consistently get him in the second round feels like a gift. Additionally, guys like Rafael Devers, Austin Riley, Matt Olson and Bryce Harper all have high-end MVP like seasons in their range of outcomes…which means I have no desire fading these guys.

So what do you do?

Unless there’s an insane ADP fall on an elite pitcher or infielder, I abide by the three outfielders through the eighth round rule.

After the first 40ish outfielders are taken off the board, the amount of questions that you have about an outfielder’s ability, playing time, and injury risk skyrockets.

I think this is best highlighted by outfielders 44 - 49.

Tyler O’Neill, George Springer, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Jorge Soler, Heliot Ramos, and Jung Hoo Lee.

I like all of these guys to different extents, but I also know that these guys all have risks associated with them.

O’Neill, Soler and Jung Hoo Lee have injury risk.

George Springer may have hit an age cliff.

Heliot Ramos could be a one season (maybe even one half) wonder.

And Pete Crow-Armstrong could just be a guy that plays because of his elite defense.

However, they all have upside which is why the market has them in the range that they go.

Pete Crow-Armstrong could get on base in a good lineup and can steal a lot of bags.

O’Neill, Soler and Ramos could all hit 30+ home runs.

Maybe Jung Hoo Lee and George Springer have 15 - 15 stolen base/home run potential or even 20 - 20 potential.

The range of outcomes for these players are wide and because of that I typically want to draft these guys as my fourth but ideally my fifth or sixth outfielder.

But I’m also completely okay passing on these guys because there are two teams and a handful of platoon guys that I’m willing to take chances on.

Drafting From the Back Up

As soon as you start a draft you should be thinking about it as a piece of art. What story are you going to tell to get this team through the regular season and through the chaotic Best Ball playoffs? As Pete Overzet often says, “how are you going to land this plane?”

When I’m looking to survive the avalanche, I think through my favorite platoon options. Kerry Carpenter is towards the top of the list. Carpenter’s price as a whole is somewhat rich for someone who only plays against right handed pitchers. He has an ADP of 133.7, but there is a very clear way that he pays off this ADP.

Kerry Carpenter can hit 25+ home runs.

He hit 20 in 459 plate appearances in 2023 and he hit 18 homers in 296 plate appearances in 2024.

Carpenter is a premier power hitter who doesn’t play every day. But imagine for just a second that he gets 550 plate appearances…that’s too rich, let’s not get greedy, let’s say Carpenter gets 500 plate appearances. With his advanced metrics, it’s incredibly easy to see him paying off his price tag across the course of the season and if he doesn’t, well there’s still the chance that he dominates one or two weeks during the playoffs.

This is a player that can hit five home runs in a week.

Carpenter did not have enough at bats to qualify, but below is a screenshot from his Baseball Savant page that highlights his elite power ability.

Carpenter’s expected slugging percentage and his barrel percentage are some of the best in the league. He consistently hits the ball hard and makes for a fun back stack with his two less attractive teammates Matt Vierling and Parker Meadows.

Meadows has an ADP of 152.6 and Matt Vierling is free at the end of drafts with an ADP of 233.2.

Last year, Meadows had 9 home runs and 9 steals in 298 plate appearances. He is more than likely to play everyday because of his defense in center field.

Unlike Carpenter, Meadows does not have a ton to get excited about when looking at his advanced metrics. However, if he plays a full season he looks to be on pace for a 20-20 campaign. At the very least, a 15 homer, 20 stolen bases type of season.

Vierling is the most ‘oatmeal’ (boring) of the group and that’s expected with an ADP in the last round, but very simply, we know he’s playing. This is someone that had 567 plate appearances last year, 16 homers and 6 steals.

When prioritizing these guys, I have them in order of ADP.

I’m willing to take Kerry Carpenter as a one-off and I’m only taking Meadows and Vierling when I’m stacking the Tigers, which isn’t very often just because my two favorite back stacks have much more juice to be squeezed.

The Cardinals & The Twins

The outfield for the Cardinals is an absolute mess if you’re drafting fantasy baseball teams that aren’t Best Ball, where you need to make decision after decision to keep them on your team, in your lineup, on your bench etc.

BUT they’re kind of a dream for Best Ball players.

You need to lean into uncertainty and the Cardinals are the premier example of how to do that. Their outfield consists of Lars Nootbar, Alec Burleson, Brendan Donovan and Jordan Walker.

It also looks like Michael Siani will play everyday in center field, but he has no offensive talent to speak of.

Lars Nootbar’s downside is his injury risk, but when he plays he’s dominant. Here is a look at his advanced metrics from Baseball Savant:

He consistently hits the ball hard, he gets on base, he just hasn’t had a full healthy season. At an ADP of pick 207.2, the risk is fully baked in. He’s a target of mine.

Alec Burleson had 21 homers and 9 steals in 595 plate appearances last year. Burleson strikes out incredibly infrequently giving balance to this lineup of guys like Nolan Gorman and Wilson Contreras who strike out 30% and 25% of the time respectively.

I think Burleson’s balance might allow him to hold a spot high in the batting order as a DH. I’m going to sprinkle him in every now and again.

Brendan Donovan is their super utility guy that gets outfield eligibility on Underdog. Like Burleson, he’s in the 97th percentile for strikeout rate. Unlike Burleson, he was in the top ten for Z-Contact for all players that had over 500 plate appearances. He makes contact 92.6% of the time on pitches in the zone. His top notch bat to ball skills along with his ability to play anywhere give me a ton of confidence in Donovan’s playing time. With an ADP of pick 179.5 the draft landscape is practically begging you to draft Brendan Donovan.

The biggest mystery of them all is Jordan Walker. The 6'6", 250-pound 22-year-old had a strong rookie season in 2023, but a sophomore slump has shifted the perception of his draft stock.

The thing that remains the same is that he’s still Jordan Walker. He’s still young, huge and has had a top 8 and a top 4 percentile max exit velocity in the last two seasons. Walker hit 16 homers in his rookie season with a 1.33 GB/FB ratio. If he can improve that ratio and refine his overall approach—something his new hitting coach, Brant Brown, has been working on with him—he has tremendous upside. Walker’s ADP is 197.7.

Mixing and matching the Cardinals outfield is an incredibly lucrative strategy to getting unique teams into the Best Ball playoffs.

My preference is Lars Nootbar > Brendan Donovan > Jordan Walker > Alec Burleson

As much as I love clicking Lars and Brendan Donovan, my favorite back stack is the Twins. It’s very simple, they have three outfielders that I’m very happy to stack on together.

Byron Buxton, Matt Wallner and the man who has an ADP that makes absolutely no sense, Trevor Larnach.

We all know the Byron Buxton story. He can’t stay healthy but is lethal when he is. His advanced metrics exemplify the powerhouse he is when he’s playing.

We don’t need to start him each week, this is Best Ball. Do your due diligence and take 14th round Byron Buxton at least 8% of the time. I don’t care that he’s only going to play 60 games. If there’s a chance that he plays in the Best Ball playoffs, I’m thrilled to have a guy that can hit 7 homers in 7 days.

Matt Wallner has an ADP of 141.3. The market has very lazily put Kerry Carpenter and Matt Wallner together as their favorite bets to hit 25+ home runs. I think this is for a good reason, but is Trevor Larnach all that different from Matt Wallner? I’m calling these guys the Twin Towers.

Wallner had 13 homers in 261 plate appearances. Like Carpenter, he didn’t have enough at bats to qualify, but his metrics show that he has the ability to put up a massive home run total.

Matt Wallner:

Trevor Larnach:

Larnach batted second for most of the year and absolutely raked when he batted third or fourth in the Twins lineup last year hitting for a .59 slugging percentage in 106 plate appearances. His advanced metrics are also incredibly promising.

Trevor Larnach is this year’s Joc Pederson. He is free at the end of drafts and for little reason. The Twins could not be a more fun team to prioritize. Carlos Correa’s ADP is depleted from his injury riddled season. At 25 years old, Royce Lewis sits around pick 120 but the 25+ home run upside is still there. Even Willi Castro accumulates points at the top of the order and is free in drafts.

My prioritization order is:

Larnarch > Wallner > Buxton

I could have written a whole article about Larnach because I think this is someone that probably only gets drafted in 25% of drafts but has the potential to put together an 1100+ point season.

That type of upside in the last round is unheard of.

Larnach’s contact skills drastically improved in 2024.

You don’t magically increase your contact numbers to this degree and decrease your strikeout rate to this degree. Is it possible that he regresses? Sure, but I don’t think he’s the type of hitter to strike out a third of the time anymore.

This is a former first round draft pick, a top prospect. He might not be the guy that people originally thought he was, but maybe in his fifth season he’s a 20+ homer guy who will get a ton of opportunity hitting towards the top of the lineup.

Here are my target exposures on the guys that you can mix and match to survive the avalanche.

Who are your favorite late round outfield options to survive the avalanche?