Diamond Digest Fantasy Rankings: Dynasty Outfield and Pitchers

In the second featured article from Diamond Digest’s fantasy baseball crew, we bring to you our rankings of major league outfielders and pitchers for dynasty league drafts. As with our previous article, our team voted for their top players at each position, and the points were calculated according to each player’s rank in each individual set of rankings. Points were assigned as the inverse of the player’s ranking from 1 to 24 on each ballot (first place received 24 points, 24th received 1 point). Without further adieu, we present our rankings for dynasty outfielders and pitchers.

Outfielders

Others Receiving Votes: Starling Marte (25), Jesse Winker (25), Brandon Nimmo (14), Jose Martinez (13), Wil Myers (7), Aaron Hicks (7), Michael Brantley (6), Kyle Schwarber (5), Justin Upton (4), Marcell Ozuna (3), David Peralta (2), Harrison Bader (1), Mallex Smith (1), Avisail Garcia (1)

The outfield contains likely the greatest concentration of young talent in the MLB, especially given the positional flexibility of guys who are eligible as outfielders. The position includes the current two best players in the league with Mike Trout and Mookie Betts, the perennial AL MVP contender and reigning champion, neither of whom is older than 27. Christian Yelich and Aaron Judge both come in as highly productive players with youth on their sides as well. Youth is aplenty in the outfield, with rising stars Ronald Acuña Jr. and Juan Soto promising value for up to the next ten years with promising rookie campaigns. Players like Kris Bryant and Whit Merrifield, while traditionally infielders, have eligibility as outfielders due to time spent there last season, and are among those who can fill outfield spots as a result as well.

Depending on the value of different forms of offensive production, especially home runs, there are outfielders with immense value as well: Khris Davis led the MLB in home runs in 2018, and Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, and JD Martinez go along with him as top tier sluggers in baseball. Regardless of what you’re looking for offensively, there’s a guy in the outfield who can provide it, and chances are he’ll be good for several years to boot. – Ryan Ruhde

Starting Pitchers

Others Receiving Votes: German Marquez (21), Jameson Taillon (19), Stephen Strasburg (14), Carlos Martinez (11), Eduardo Rodriguez (10), Luis Castillo (9), Sean Manaea (5), Shane Bieber (1), Reynaldo Lopez (1), Nick Pivetta (1), Lucas Giolito (1), Robbie Ray (1)

For as much as we talk about the polarizing offenses in baseball, the amount of elite starters around the game is amazing. Just one example of the amazing depth among starters, is Clayton Kershaw, one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball history at just 30-years-old, is ranked as the 12th best starter for dynasty, due to his injury issues and age. In reality, you can’t go wrong taking any of these 24. Long term pick? Walker Buehler, Blake Snell, Aaron Nola, Luis Severino, and others are going to be dominating the game for years to come. Just want a safe pick? Clorey Kluber, Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, and Kershaw are some of the most consistent and best bets you can make. Each major league team has five starters, so the amount of sleepers you can find at the position is robust. A starter is one of the easiest early picks you can make, but these rankings will help you even more. – Adam Koplik

Relief Pitchers

Others Receiving Votes: Corey Knebel (25), Kirby Yates (21), Brad Peacock (19), AJ Minter (14), Alex Colome (14), Jeremy Jeffress (13), Chad Green (13), Jeurys Familia (8), Mychal Givens (7), Lou Trivino (4), Ryan Pressly (3), Seth Lugo (3), Robert Gsellman (2), Cody Allen (2), Carl Edwards Jr. (1)

Picking the right relief pitchers is far and away the most difficult position to nail down.  Just look at the top of our list for this season and you’ll see Josh Hader, Blake Treinen, and Jose Leclerc, players that were either undrafted to start your league last season, or used as a filler for a final relief spot.  Sure there were some signs, like Leclerc and Hader’s rather absurd strikeout rates in limited MLB action, and a young Athletics team turning into contenders, thus giving Treinen the save opportunities, but those situations can apply to dozens of players.  So, how should we pick which relief pitchers are worth rostering at their current ADP?

First, make sure their chance to grab precious saves in there. Pick players on winning teams and pick players who don’t have a imminent threat to their production of saves.  Edwin Diaz was great on a so-so Mariners squad, and is now closing on an improving New York Mets squad. His lights out abilities earned our top spot for the season. A couple players worth considering as we move down the ranks are Seranthony Dominguez and Raisel Iglesias.  Both of these players are on teams that have upgraded their roster and for the time being are planted as their team’s 9th inning man. The most important thing to remember is how fluid this position can be. Our team ranked a total of 39 players, but we can almost guarantee a handful of unnamed players will appear on next year’s list so make sure to keep up with team beat writers on the always changing closer dynamic. – Mike Gunther

Coming Next:
Dynasty Prospects
Single-Season Rankings
Photo Credit: wikipedia.com