Aggressively Go After Brian McCann
After making the All-Star game in every full season of his career, Brian McCann ran into an injury plagued 2012 that saw him post a wRC+ of just 86, 30 points lower than his career average. To top it off, he only just returned from shoulder surgery yesterday and he is in his last year under contract with Atlanta. As the former perennial all-star is set to hit free agency, another bump in the road has crossed in front of him in Evan Gattis. McCann may still be headed for a big pay day, but he will have to battle for playing time when the Braves are healthy with what looks to be the team’s catcher of the future.
McCann will be given every opportunity to hold onto the starting job that he has owned since 2006. However, the Braves are ready to win now, and if McCann struggles as he did last season the Braves will give Gattis more and more plate appearances behind the plate. The potential for a platoon is real, which would seriously hurt McCann’s overall fantasy value.
While he is a less polished hitter than McCann, Gattis’s power is significant and the team has faith in him improving at the plate with more experience against major league pitching. Needless to say, McCann has a lot riding on a good final five months before hitting free agency.
If all goes as planned for Atlanta, they will try to manage getting Gattis three to four starts a week between catcher, first base, and left field. The issue with doing this is that those three positions arguably hold the team’s top hitters, especially when you consider the ability to move Upton to right field and putting Gattis in left to spell Jason Heyward – when he is healthy – against left-handed pitchers. That means the four options for fitting Gattis into the lineup mean taking McCann, Freddie Freeman, Justin Upton, or Jason Heyward out. Gattis is good, but those are franchise type hitters.
Fredi Gonzalez will have a difficult task at hand and we have seen what type of manager he is over the past few years. He is more than willing to play the hot hand over the name late in the season, as evident when he played Jose Constanza down the stretch over Jason Heyward during Heyward’s rough sophomore campaign.
So what should owners be expecting out of McCann? Well, he hit his first home run of the season last night off Ryan Vogelsong in San Francisco, a park known for destroying right field home runs. That was certainly a good sign, but far from a reason to put a “buy” sign on McCann. I believe he will have a big year at the plate, mostly due to how good of shape he has gotten himself in and how important this season is for his future as a major leaguer. Getting in quality shape was extremely important for him. If he got tagged as a guy with only a few seasons remaining behind the plate, he would get much less money in free agency as a soon-to-be-DH.
From a fantasy perspective, it is good that he did not rush himself back too quickly from the shoulder surgery. He looks to have no issues with his swing or in his motion behind the plate. It is difficult to simply assume he will be healthy, but at this point it does not look like the shoulder injury will continue to linger. Assuming it doesn’t, I think the ZiPS projections on McCann for the rest of the season look fairly accurate. For reference, ZiPS has McCann at a .259/.340/.444 line with 15 more home runs and 53 RBI. That is all in just 90 games and 362 plate appearances, so those are quality numbers.
If I am having issues at catcher, I am absolutely going after Brian McCann. At this point, he can still be had for cheap. Make a solid offer and I bet you end up happy you grabbed McCann in his final season. These are the types of moves that can push you over the edge, so go after McCann aggressively and grab him before he goes on a tear and jumps out of your price range.
Ben has been at RotoGraphs since 2012 and focuses most of his fantasy baseball attention toward dynasty and keeper leagues.
Was looking at picking up McCann and dropping Arencibia, but I decided to do some research first. After I got done reading this article I went to pick him up and somebody else beat me to it. But he dropped Miguel Montero…do I go Montero for JPA?
I’d go with Montero there
McCann or Sally Perez rest of season?
McCann. The love affair around Perez in redraft leagues confuses me a bit. He’s a nice player, but limited power and no walks. I like McCann a good deal more even if he hits for a lower average and nets a lower OBP — which I don’t expect to happen in terms of OBP.
I go McCann all the way here.
McCann looks good thus far. The Braves won’t want to push him too much at first.
This article points out the good news for Gattis owners in daily leagues. Heyward, McCann and Freeman are all lefty hitters (although McCann and Freeman don’t have huge issues there). Gattis will get pt against lefties.
I’m not that experienced with fantasy ball yet, but i love coming here to read and get better at understanding how to be a successful owner in my 10-team standard H2H league.
I’ve had my eye on McCann in the FA pool in my league since he came back from injury. Currently i have only Miguel Montero in that position, and although he’s been under-performing, i’m not sure how to weigh his value against McCann’s in an add/drop situation. My other option is to drop someone else so that i have two options at C (plus i have 2 UTIL spots), but that would mean dropping either Hosmer or Markakis. Decisions, decisions….
I have M. Montero, too, and agonized over whether to drop him, due to his horrible performance thus far, and pick up McCann (and I am a Braves fan). I did some research and read that Montero has been plagued by extremely low BABIP of .224 when his career average is .315. So he is sure to have balls dropping in for hits soon. His K and BB rates are no different now than in the past. One analyst still has him as no. 5 among catchers by end of the year. There are so many questions surrounding McCann, part of which is his playing time, and I drafted Montero because he plays most games. I decided to stick with Montero, and someone else picked up McCann. McCann has looked pretty good in his first two games so far. I hope for him that he does great the rest of the way, but I also hope I made the right choice in sticking with Montero and that he performs according to his career norms. If so, I’ll be happy I didn’t use a second roster spot for a catcher I’d have to platoon in that position.
I’m currently starting Arencibia, whom I picked up to replace Jesus Montero. Both McCann and Miguel Montero are available in my league.
The consensus seems to be to go with McCann over Arencibia, but the objective projections suggest otherwise. Here’s ZIPS(R) and Steamer(R) for Arencibia, McCann and Miguel Montero:
Player PA (S/Z) R (S/Z) HR (S/Z) RBI (S/Z) SB (S/Z) AVG (S/Z)
Arencibia 262/373 30/43 13/20 36/57 1/1 227/238
McCann 318/362 38/35 12/15 42/53 2/2 258/259
Montero 378/409 44/42 10/10 45/55 1/0 266/257
If we go off ZIPS (since Steamer projects Arencibia to get way fewer PA) I’m not seeing the argument for Montero or McCann over Arencibia. RBI and SB are a wash. McCann figures to score less and Arencibia figures to hit for a lower average. Arencibia figures to hit more HR.
I’ll trade 20 points of AVG for an extra 5-10 HR, especially on a catcher (whose fewer AB are going to dampen the effect of his average, but not the counting stats.)
If Mccann can not be acquired, how would you rank ROS:
Salvador Perez
Miguel Montero
Jesus Montero
Russel Martin
Not Jesus Montero
Miguel Montero
Russell Martin
Salvador Perez
Jesus Montero
McCann or Victor?
So aggressively acquire McCann…ok. Could you give me an example of a tier of players we should be trading for him? Top 50? Top 100? Top 150? What?
What would constitute a solid, fair offer?
I’ll trade you McCann for Trout and Verlander.
Not sure since C is extremely deep this year. Probably top 100? He hasn’t really played long enough to set his value.
I drafted M. Montero and became frustrated despite his prospects for a good season. I dropped MM for McCann, moved him to the DL, then picked up Arencibia. Now I have McCann, but unsure if I have the right catcher. Luckily both MM and JP are still FAs just in case if Brian falters or doesn’t get enough PT.
If all things are equal who has the best season in a 6×5 (avg, runs, hr, rbis, ops)?
Forgot SBs 🙂
McCann or V-Mart?
I have Cain. would you trade Lorenzo cain for mccann?
McCann or Gattis.
I picked up McCann and had him on my DL. I have Joe Mauer at Catcher position and Michael Young at 1b. Neither have great power. Would it be wise to put Mauer at 1b, and McCann at catcher and have Young on the bench? Or do I try to trade McCann or Mauer?
Young’s only real skill lately has been BA and right now he’s striking out a lot more than has the last couple years, and his .370 BABIP is bound to drop. So depending on your league size you might want to drop Young for someone with more upside. A Mauer-McCann combo at C and 1B is OK, especially if you can put in another 1B when one of them has a day off. But you might be best served trading one — and Mauer’s name value might be more likely to get you a decent 1B in return.
I guess this is slightly off topic but Gattis is only 2 years younger than McCann how does that make him the future? McCann is coming off injury but is in his 9th year and Gattis has just over 100 big league PAs.
Gattis will be cheap and under control for 6 years. That makes him the future, plus he has little catcher wear and tear as he was out of the game for several years.
Leaning toward mccann over vmart