After a long, cold, frustratingly slow offseason, MLB’s regular season begins on Wednesday, March 20, with the Dodgers and Padres squaring off in Seoul (the 28 other teams will get things started on Thursday, March 28). With precious little time to go until Opening Day, now is the time to start cranking up your fantasy baseball drafts — and we’re here to be your one-stop shop for all things draft prep. We just recently unveiled our top 300 overall for redraft leagues in 2024, as well as top prospects to know, full positional previews and sleepers at every position.
Now, however, it’s time for something a little less fun: players to avoid at every position. Next up: the outfield, a position that’s come under quite a bit of fire for a perceived lack of depth this spring. While I think that’s largely overblown, four or five starting spots per team is a lot of demand, and supply certainly seems to be falling short. Someone’s going to be left out in the cold in this game of musical chairs. How can you ensure it’s not you? Read on for our players to fade.
Fantasy baseball busts: Outfield
Luis Robert, Chicago White Sox
ADP: 36
Robert’s ceiling is sky-high, and I love watching him play. And there are certainly scenarios in which he puts up Julio Rodriguez-type numbers and we’re talking about him as a first-rounder at this time next year. But there’s also a ton of risk in the profile, and this price is just a bit too rich for me, for a number of reasons. To start with the obvious: Last year was the first time Robert played more than 100 games in a season, and even then, he ended the year on the IL with a sprained MCL in his left knee. That’s a lot of injury risk to take on with your third-round pick. He’s also an extremely aggressive hitter, with a strikeout rate pushing 30% that hints at some batting average regression — and a floor well below last year’s .264 mark. Combine that with likely middling counting stats in a bad White Sox lineup — a lineup that will encourage every team to pitch around Robert and make him expand the zone — and there are just too many red flags to ignore, even with the power/speed potential.
Josh Lowe, Tampa Bay Rays
ADP: 88
The case against Lowe begins with a simple fact: He’s not an everyday player for the Rays, and he likely never will be. Tampa is going to leverage every single matchup, platooning its way to a playoff berth despite limited resources. That’s going to cost Lowe, who will pretty much always sit against lefties. And considering his mediocre defense in right, he could be out of a job if he gets off to a slow start at the plate, with plenty of other viable candidates around him. The playing time cap limits the ceiling here, and the floor is somewhere in the basement, which is a hard combination to stomach this early in drafts — especially for a guy with such a limited track record of MLB production.
Lane Thomas, Washington Nationals
ADP: 119
I was actually banging the drum for Thomas as a late sleeper last draft season, but after a breakout 2023 his price has risen to the point where I can’t possibly justify taking him. Thomas’ season-long numbers were largely inflated by a truly ridiculous month of June in which he posted a 1.014 OPS. But he put up a middling .223/.274/.431 line during the second half, much more in line with his career .726 OPS. Granted, he still hit 12 homers and stole 14 bases during that stretch; he should still be good for solid power/speed totals and an everyday job in the Nationals’ depleted outfield. Again: I’m not out all the way on Thomas, I’m just out on him at his current price. 20/20 players are nothing to sneeze at, but when they come with middling counting stats and a bad batting average, they’re not worth a pick in the first 10 rounds or so.
Cedric Mullins, Baltimore Orioles
ADP: 131
That’s now a second consecutive year of league-average production at the plate undergirded by abysmal batted-ball metrics for Mullins, and at this point it’s fair to wonder if it’s going to cost him his status as an everyday player. The defense in center field remains solid, but the Orioles are absolutely loaded for bear just about everywhere, outfield included — with Anthony Santander and Austin Hays already around and youngsters Heston Kjerstad, Colton Cowser and Kyle Stowers banging on the door. We already saw this play out toward the end of last season, when Mullins sat regularly against left-handed pitching. If he keeps failing to make an impact at the plate, he could really start to see his playing time evaporate. In the abstract, 15 homers and 25 steals is a useful profile, even with a bad batting average. But you’re really relying on that steal total to carry the profile, and if he finds himself a part-time player after a slow start, you’ll be in real trouble.
Esteury Ruiz, Oakland Athletics
ADP: 130
Take everything I just said, then double or triple it where Ruiz is concerned. Yes, the A’s are more performance art than professional baseball team these days — but even they have a threshold of production that must be met for a player to see the field regularly, and Ruiz is flirting with it. If you’re drafting Ruiz here, it’s likely with the hope that he’ll be a one-man steals category for you; he did lead the AL with 67 last season, after all. But that’s literally the only thing he’s going to contribute, and it’s dependent on him being an everyday player. That’s hardly a given, not after he slashed a dismal .254/.309/.345 (.619 OPS against righties) to go with poor center-field defense. Ruiz only started half of the team’s games from August 5 on, and the reality of the new stolen-base landscape is that you simply don’t need to value one-category speedsters like this anymore.
