Since every team has multiple outfielders and some of the best hitters in fantasy baseball play the position, outfield is always a well-stocked position. However, it’s also usually a very deep position where fantasy baseball sleepers emerge every season. Whether you invest in top talent in the outfield or opt to focus on thinner positions, getting late-round or cheap outfielders who out-produce expectations is a key path to success for fantasy baseball. While there are plenty of options, a few fantasy baseball sleepers stand out to me from the outfield in the American League.
Whether you prefer season-long leagues, DFS contests, or DraftKings Best Ball, DK Network will have you covered throughout the upcoming season. To begin our coverage, we went through potential breakouts at each position: AL SP Breakouts, NL SP Breakouts, AL OF Breakouts, NL OF Breakouts, Catcher Breakouts, 1B Breakouts, 2B Breakouts, 3B Breakouts and SS Breakouts. In my AL OF breakouts, I highlighted Wyatt Langford, Kerry Carpenter and Ceddanne Rafaela. In addition to those three options, here are some more AL outfielders who I think will end up being fantasy baseball sleepers based on their current draft cost.
Riley Greene, Detroit Tigers
Greene isn’t a traditional late-round, end-of-the-draft sleeper, but he’s very undervalued right now in drafts going as the No. 30 OF but with the potential to be a true top-10 option if he continues to develop as such a well-rounded hitter.
Even after a strong 2024, Greene is still only 24 years old and growing as a hitter headed into the 2025 campaign. The Tigers strengthened the surrounding lineup this offseason and will look to carry over the momentum of last season’s “Gritty Tigs” late-season success. Greene finished with career bests in games played, home runs, RBI, walk rate, strikeout rate, ISO and wOBA. With a 135 wRC+, he ranked 20th in the MLB And 10th in the AL.
Greene also had outstanding quality of contact. His 13.4% barrel rate and 47.1% hard-hit rate were both near the top of the league, and continued to show steady growth from his previous two seasons. He continued to adjust his launch angle, resulting in his fly ball rate moving from 21.8% to 27.7% while his groundball rate dropped from 48.9% to 43.6%.
This season, Greene will look to be a little more consistent, since he did tail off in August before a big September. Even if he returns as the exact same hitter he was last season, he would be better than the 30th-best outfielder, and there is so much room for growth in a better lineup as he continues to grow as a hitter.
His well-rounded, patient approach and good power makes him a nice mid-round investment with truly elite upside.
Matt Wallner, Minnesota Twins
While Greene is a very well-rounded hitter, for my next two fantasy baseball sleepers in the outfield I’m going to focus on players with high upside based on one aspect of their game–power.
If you’re looking to swing for the fences with one of the late-round fantasy baseball sleepers in the outfield, Wallner could be the perfect play for you. He literally swings for the fences on a regular basis, resulting in some solid power production but also a very elevated strikeout rate.
He played 76 games for the Twins in 2023 with 14 homers and a .377 wOBA, but had a 31.5% strikeout rate. In 75 games in 2024, Wallner hit 13 homers with a slight improvement to a .385 wOBA, but his strikeout rate actually went up all the way to 36.4%.
Wallner’s Statcast numbers are downright impressive, making him a darling for those who lean heavily on advanced metrics. His average exit velocity, max exit velocity, barrel rate, and hard-hit percentage were all near the top of the league. He also ranked very highly in Statcast’s bat speed metric, finishing with the sixth-highest average bat speed among players with at least 200 swings last season. The big lefty definitely doesn’t get cheated at the plate, getting in mighty hacks whenever he can. Unfortunately, there are just lots of times his powerful swings come up empty.
He was called up from Triple-A in early July of last season, and hit .282 in his last 62 games of the season, with 12 homers and a .405 wOBA. He platooned and rarely faced lefties, but his numbers were impressive aside from that elevated strikeout rate. His season was cut short by a late-September oblique issue, but he’s reportedly healthy as the Twins’ start training camp.
With Max Kepler signing in Philadelphia, Wallner should be set for a starting role in the outfield. If you can live with the strikeouts, his power gives him great upside as a late-round flier.
Heston Kjerstad, Baltimore Orioles
Kjerstad has dominated at Triple-A, but he hasn’t been able to catch on in the majors yet and doesn’t have a clear path to playing time for the O’s right now. If he realizes his potential, his power numbers could be huge for a late-round addition, but he may need an injury or roster move to give him the opportunity he needs.
In 2023, Kjerstad hit 21 homers in Double-A and Triple-A with a .397 wOBA and .225 ISO. He hit his first two MLB homers as well, but only hit .233 (7-for-30), striking out in one-third of his at-bats. Last year, he played 62 games in the minors, hitting .303 for the second straight season and smashing 16 homers and a .423 wOBA.
He had a quick stint with the MLB team in May, but finally found success after being called up in late June. In 14 games, he went 14-for-37 (.378) with three home runs and a .479 wOBA. In the last of those 14 games, though, he was hit in the head by a pitch from Yankees closer Clay Holmes.
Kjerstad was actually in the lineup the following day but was scratched and ultimately landed on the seven-day concussion IL. He came back later in the month, played seven games and went just 2-for-18 before landing back on the IL with concussion symptoms. He was unable to return for six weeks before getting back in action for 11 games at the end of the season. He looked much more his normal self, going 7-for-30 (.233) with his fourth homer of the season.
With his big minor league production and strong stretch before his concussion, there is lots of optimism around the Kjerstad coming into this season. Executive VP/GM Mike Elias said that this Spring Training is a “big opportunity” for Kjerstad, who “earned the right to get a lot of at-bats in the corner outfield and in the DH spot, specifically against right-handed pitching.”
If he has a strong spring, Kjerstad could be the latest of the Orioles’ big-time position player prospects to become a regular fantasy contributor. At this point, he’s still barely being drafted with an ADP below Joc Pederson and Dylan Moore outside the top 85 outfielders. His upside is so high that he’s a great snag at that point in drafts and could end up being one of the year’s best fantasy baseball sleepers in the outfield.
