2026 Fantasy Baseball Sleepers – Outfield

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  • By SportsEthos Staff

    Outfield is, once again, one of the most deep positions in fantasy baseball.

    Many managers take the top dogs at the position early and often.

    For good reason.

    But that may leave some managers a little light on the back end of drafts and needing to recoup lost value from getting sniped in the earlier rounds.

    This is where we come in.

    We break down some key names that are being drafted way too late and will return excellent value on your investment.

    NOTE: ADP comes from the NFBC Draft Champion leagues.

    Larry Vannozzi

    Daylen Lile – ADP – 208.00/OF50

    Lile had his first crack at MLB pitching last year and it went well. He batted .299 in 91 games (.305 xBA and 83.5% contact rate) with nine homers, 41 RBI and eight stolen bases. He didn’t walk much but had an excellent 16% strikeout rate and showed Top 10% sprint speed.

    And remember – he was a rookie and just 22 years-old. He is a lefty who needs to stay at least competent against lefties (.254 last year) and improve his efficiency on the base paths (only 8-for-14 last year). If he can accomplish those two tasks and remain in the top half of the lineup, Lile could breakout in 2026 and beat his 206 ADP (January 14).

    Dylan Beavers – ADP – 317.59/OF69

    When you bailed on your lousy fantasy baseball team in favor of fantasy football late last summer, you probably didn’t notice the Orioles call up Dylan Beavers.

    He played in just 35 games and hit four homers with 14 RBI and a .227 average (yuck) but, get this… a 19% BB%! What?!?! Yes, it was a very small sample but it’s in keeping with the high rate (13%) that he demonstrated in the minor leagues.

    And let’s not forget that Beavers is a former first-round draft pick with Top 10% speed who averaged 39 SBs per 162 games in the minors. He has a chance to significantly beat his 285 ADP (January 14).

    Jeff Clowers

    Daylen Lile – ADP – 208.00/OF50

    Outside of James Wood’s breakout in the Nation’s capital, there was only really one player who significantly raised their stock with their 2025 performance and that honor lies with Daylen Lile.

    Making his rookie debut at 22-years-old, Lile earned high praise for his pure hitting ability, with some comparisons being made to Michael Brantley. Though that may seem lofty at first, I think it’s apt. In his first season in the majors, Lile outpaced 99% of the league in expected batting average (.309) and earned the top spot when it came to finding the launch-angle sweet-spot, proving he has elite bat control skills.

    He’s not a totally empty-average hitter either, as his ISO finished one point below .200 while knocking nine home runs and stealing eight bases in 91 games played. Though that puts him still several classes below being a superstar, that’s more-or-less the Brantley profile in a nutshell – and he was consistently an underrated fantasy performer during his time in the majors.

    There’s still some growth opportunities available for him to build upon as well, so while I don’t think Lile will suddenly find himself a top-50 player at any point, he could be a mainstay of the top-150 range in the coming years.

    Chandler Simpson – ADP – 153.17/OF36

    Fantasy managers and analysts will often suggest Simpson is a player whose value shifts dramatically in leagues that use some form of OPS. While that’s true to some degree, it seems to suggest that Simpson is a difficult player to own in the more-sabermetric based formats but I want to shift the goalposts just a little here. I think that in OPS leagues, Simpson is still incredibly valuable – and if you happen to own him in a standard format league, he’s an absolute gamebreaker with his speed.

    Yes, he did suffer a demotion to the minors midseason but the reason was much more to do with the Rays’ roster construction and his disappointing defensive metrics than any deficiencies at the plate.

    Sure, he lacks any true modicum of power but he is far from a slouch with the stick – especially if you take into account his eye for avoiding strikeouts. Simpson finished the year in the 98th-percentile for whiff rate, strikeout rate and squared-up rate, three of the most important bat control metrics, as well as an xBA of .295 that ranked in the top-two percent of the league.

    Though he only sported a 4.5% walk rate, that package of skills still gives him a solid OBP baseline, supplemented by his ability to leg out many a groundball.

    With an average of 0.4 steals per game, a full 162-game pace for Simpson would put him near 65 by season’s end, which would be 16 more than Jose Caballero, last year’s league-leader. A true talent .300 hitter with the capability to steal 60+ is likely a second- or third-round value in standard formats. Getting him in the 14th round based off current ADP seems like an absolute steal.

    Nathan Baker

    Luis Robert Jr. – ADP – 130.59/OF29


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    January 23, 2026, 8:01 am