2012 June Catcher Tiers Update
Even though the positional rankings aren;t being updated monthly, the tiers are, so let’s take a look at some of the movement amongst the catchers. We saw a few things happen with the May tiers but I held back any extreme movement because of sample sizes and questions surrounding performance sustainability. This month, guys are moving…
| U.S. Prime |
| Buster Posey |
| Mike Napoli |
| Carlos Santana |
So no movement in and out of the tier, but Posey gets the nod as the top guy this time around. None of the three had a particularly strong month of May, but Posey gets the call for the better overall totals. Truth be told, Santana is wearing on me a little. I know he had the concussion concerns, but it seems like his walk-rate is his best asset and that shouldn’t be enough for top billing. His potential and his upside keep him here, barely hanging on by a thread.
| U.S. Choice |
| Matt Wieters |
| Jesus Montero |
| Brian McCann |
| Joe Mauer |
No movement in and out of this tier yet either, but just like last month, there was temptation to just lump the top two tiers together. Seems like everyone is struggling a bit, particularly in the batting average department, so we’ll just leave these boys as they are.
| U.S. Select |
| Miguel Montero |
| Yadier Molina |
Carlos Ruiz  |
| A.J. Pierzynski |
OK all you Ruiz lovers, here you go! Another strong month from Chooch gets him a two-tier bump. I still have concerns about him sustaining this for most of the year, especially when they start playing with the lineup once Ryan Howard and Chase Utley work their way back, but not enough to keep this man down. Same with Pierzynski. A real strong May backs up a fantastic April. He’s getting older and should obviously wear down easier, but perhaps this is a last gasp for greatness…?
| U.S. Standard |
| Russell Martin |
| J.P. Arencibia |
| Ryan Doumit |
Alex Avila  |
| Jarrod Saltalamacchia |
| A.J. Ellis |
Good news or bad news first? OK, the bad news…I don’t see Avila getting much better this season. Last year was great and all, but he’s under-produced this season and the strikeouts are killing an impressive 11.8% walk rate. Add on a DL stint and we’ve got our first drop here. The good news is that Avila’s drop is countered with jumps from Salty and Ellis, both of who have enjoyed strong months of production in May, and look to be worthy of a bump in class.
| U.S. Commerical |
| Geovany Soto |
| Kurt Suzuki |
| Jonathan Lucroy |
| Ramon Hernandez |
Injuries drop both Soto and Lucroy here, and while I don’t usually like to drop tiers due to injury unless it’s season-ending, Soto has been slow to recover (and a disappointment the last few seasons) and I don’t see Lucroy’s production having much of an impact upon his eventual return.
| U.S. Utility |
| Josh Thole |
| Devin Mesoraco |
| Nick Hundley |
| Chris Iannetta |
No movement in and out of this tier, but with Iannetta’s injury, he drops to the bottom of the tier. Mesoraco gets to stay based on potential and upside although Dusty is absolutely killing his fantasy value. He’s not doing much to help his own cause, but without consistent playing time it’s tough to see what he can really do.
**Last minute addition — Forgot to add Jesus Flores after removing Wilson Ramos from the list. I would put Ramos right there, probably just behind Thole for the time being.
| U.S. Cutter |
| Salvador Perez |
| John Buck |
| Ryan Hanigan |
| Tyler Flowers |
| Rod Barajas |
Since he hasn’t played a game yet, we’ll leave Perez here, but I expect a jump in tiers over the next month or so. And Flowers emerges as a decent back-up option, although as long as Pierzynski continues at this level, Flowers’ playing time will stay minimal.
| U.S. Canner |
| Yorvit Torrealba |
| John Jaso |
| Miguel Olivo |
| Jason Castro |
And the spam…….
Howard Bender has been covering fantasy sports for over 10 years on a variety of websites. In addition to his work here, you can also find him at his site, RotobuzzGuy.com, Fantasy Alarm, RotoWire and Mock Draft Central. Follow him on Twitter at @rotobuzzguy or for more direct questions or comments, email him at rotobuzzguy@gmail.com
Free Wilin Rosario!!!!
Wil Myers has C eligibility in yahoo! leagues. What is his value relative to this list? I have no idea.
Myers is definitely playin gwell in Triple-A Omaha, but the Royals hav eno room for him up in the bigs. He won’t catch, as Salvador Perez is on his way back and he won’t supplant either Alex Gordon or Jeff Francoeur.
There’s a slight chance, because Lorenzo Cain had a setback that they could move Frenchy over to center like they’ve done during interleague in NL parks, but only if Jarrod Dyson completely tanks.
With such a slim chance of him getting a call anytime soon, I would keep Myers right the cutters and the canners unless something changes in the near future.
No Wilin Rosario? 9 home runs makes his case. Poor batting eye and avg aside, when you think about a catcher, especially in two catcher leagues, you take any part of a stat line that’s good and run with it. He’s been muscling up and played in 21 games in May, and 8 games so far in June. With the Rockies looking like a seller, I think he’s going to get more and more playing time and force the Rockies to see what they’re going to have moving forward. He at least deserves to be among the likes of his team mate, Soto and Suzuki.
GAH!!!!!!! Can’t believe I missed Rosario!!
Sorry all! Love him!! Would Tier him up at the top of the group in U.S. Commercial with a very strong chance to move up quickly. Think it’s only a matter of time before the Rox cut bait with Hernandez. Rosario is definitely capable of handling the starting duties all on his own the rest of the way.
Nothing screams out “amateur” quite like someone who goes crazy with multiple punctuation marks. Please lose that habit.
what about emoticons???
😉
should i start bud norris tonight?
I have him active for tonight’s game, especially if Melky is still out of the lineup. Not much of a track record, but the last time he pitched at AT&T Park he went 7 innings with just two runs and 10 K.
looks like we screwed the pooch together on this one….whoops! Atleast it wasn’t an all-out shellacking.
Jesus Montero above Yadier Molina??
Don;t mean to slight Yaddy, but I’m still a big believer in Montero. I think he’ll pick that avg up and hit for some more power soon enough. He should also see more opportunities since he’s DHing most of the time.
you are crazy. no way yadier should be that low. how many more months does he have to stay the number 1 fantasy catcher before you start showing him any respect??
I agee with mark.. you’re crazy. Molina has been arguably the best catcher in the entire league and he’s listed in the third tier? That doesn’t make any sense.
Molina has better numbers than anyone in the second tier.. you should give credit where credit is due.
something for us to re-visit throughout the season….if they ever let me out of this padded room, that is.
come on. Martin is cooked. and JPA is at risk. I will take Salty over those guys in a heartbeat
Rosario’s crushing lefties, but righties are owning him. He’s so underrated, he’s actually overrated right now.
U.S. Blues would have been a good fit for the final tier.
Was going for cuts of meat as the category headers here. But if I start using Grateful Dead songs next time, U.S. Blues will certainly be there……how about the all-injured tier? Brokedown Palace?
These rankings seem kind of bunk. Lets compare Mauer against someone you have ranked (in my opinion) rather high, Jesus Montero.
Mauer walks (14.5%) more than he strikes out (10.7%). Maybe you don’t count OBP in your league? Mauer is batting 0.302. Oh, you mean Mauer’s counting stats aren’t that great compared to other catchers? 1st in runs, Mauer’s got more RBIs than everyone ranked higher than him except Montero (Miguel) and Posey (who have him beat by 1 and 3 RBIs respectively). I concede that his HR numbers are down, but he’s batting .302! With a .410 OBP! He’s not durable you think? He’s played in 55 games out of a possible of 60. That is pretty good – and it aligns with the same rationale you have about J. Montero DHing. Oh yeah, Mauer has a success rate above 0% when it comes stealing – not that +2 NSB is something to brag about…
Now you say you’re a believer in Montero? 5.3% bb rate, 21.3% K rate, his counting stats are all worse than Mauer’s, but I would rather a guy hit .302 than .260. Power is coming soon, I know it? Maybe, maybe not. You may think Mauer’s BABIP is a little high, and his GB/FB rate out of wack, but even adjusted I think I would still have Mauer higher than Montero.
Look I know fantasy baseball is not clear cut – hell, I’m dead last in my league (blast you Rickie Weeks and Brett Lawrie). If you asked mean, I wouldn’t even say that say I’m good at fantasy baseball. But you’re writing for FanGraphs (err RotoGraphs) man! You’re supposed to provide some sort of rationale other than “I’m still a big believer in Montero.” Rank them however you want – you’re smart and a talented writer (I am assuming you are, because you get to write for this site), but at least provide a rationale (he’s younger, his team is better, I don’t know you’re the expert!) if you’re gonna go against the grain.
Agree. A similar analysis should apply to Montero vs. Ruiz. If we’re talking about long-term potential, then sure, I’ll take Montero over Ruiz. But going forward this year, there’s not a lot of evidence that suggests that Montero is going to outperform Ruiz over the rest of this year.
At some point in the season, you have to say that the numbers mean something: a veteran player may have achieved a late-career skills improvement, or a highly touted young player may be slow in translating his skills to the major leagues. I would suggest that 40% of the way into the season is probably not a ridiculous time to start incorporating some of this data into your pre-season analysis.
I have one last point. Re-reading the article at a much more reasonable time of day, I do understand that these are “tiers” and not “ranks” (e.g. 1-32), however (and I actually have thought this about all the different tier articles that have been written thus far) is that there has not really been enough definition as to what the difference between a tier and a rank is.
I imagine tier to be somewhat of a greater evaluation of a players fantasy value – something to help give us as fantasy managers (wow that sounds incredibly depressing, haha) a sense of how to evaluate catcher A vs catcher B beyond just the numbers. Sure a ranking system allows us to do that, but ranks are almost entirely based on who is better than the other in terms of pure performance, and does not take into account other things.
Too often I read these articles and think “preposterous, A is so much better than B for 1 2 3 reasons”, but it is important to take a step back and think about the difference between value and performance. Obviously Joe Mauer is a very good catcher – in the last RotoGraphs catcher rankings, he was fourth; however the trick is whether or not he is a good value. Compared so some of the other players in the game, probably his value is less (fantasy wise anyways). Wilin Rosario is a great example of that.
However even still, I feel that there needs to be a little more explanation. Value will always include a measure of performance – so when the performance numbers don’t match against the value “numbers”, then you get a bunch of disgruntled commenters. I hope this helps give you a little more insight into my thoughts anyways.
Props for putting the time and thought into organizing this either way – while I may not agree with your final conclusions, it certainly has made me think a lot more about how to evaluate players.
appreciate the feedback here. thank you very much. will definitely take everything into consideration when I re-do the tiers for July.
Should I hold on to Wilin Rosario with his treetrunk-like bat while he’s hot or drop him for a cleaner hitting (in the past) Miguel Montero who is oddly available right now?
for this year, I would probably grab Montero, but for keeper leagues, Rosario is the way I would go.
Wow Carlos Ruiz the best fantasy catcher in either league and he is in the third tier? That’s tough.