2013 End of Season Rankings: Catcher

The 2013 fantasy baseball season has come to a close, so it is time to look back at the season past and determine which players were the most valuable at each position. This week focuses on catchers.

The players were ranked based on their 2013 production, using the evaluation system explained and updated on this site some time ago. To keep things manageable and avoid skewing the numbers, players were only considered if they amassed 400 plate appearances over the course of the year. The replacement level was also adjusted to account for players eligible at multiples positions. The valuations are built for $260 budgets and traditional 5×5 roto fantasy leagues, where only one catcher is started.

One important thing to note is the premium (or lack thereof) placed on the position a player occupies in your lineup. For example, while a first baseman may be able to accumulate superior overall numbers, the availability of such production lower in the rankings severely dampers the amount the player was worth.

These rankings are meant to reflect a player’s value should he have occupied this spot in your lineup for the entire year. So, a player who missed time due to injury but put up great numbers during his time on the field would be worth less.

With all this in mind, here are your rankings.

An overview:
Catchers were pretty boring this year, with a fairly deep stable and not much in the way of top end talent. Mauer’s value dropped due to his RBI total and time missed, and even if you had the top guy available in Napoli, you weren’t enamored with him all year long.

If Mauer comes back healthy next year, McCann plays close to a full season, and Posey gets some sustained help in the lineup, this core could be a little more interesting in 2014.

Diligent readers will note that these catcher values are higher than was listed in the overall rankings. This is due to a correction of a small mistake I noticed.