All Star Break Updated Consensus Ranks: Catcher

With all the ups and downs in the catcher position, the coloring on this table might be a surprise to some.

Yeah, until Russell Martin, nobody moves more than two spots in the rankings since our last update. Even Brian McCann only moved two spots by proving he was healthy. Jason Castro’s new batted ball profile, and all that new power? It earns him a few spots.

Evan Gattis won a job, lost it, got hurt and got healthy again, and there he is, almost in the same spot (he was 18th). He’s actually a decent argument for the consensus approach. Others may have undervalued his power, while I definitely over-projected his playing time. But now that we know more about his playing time with a healthy McCann, our rankings are closer — all of us have him around #20 — and the result is the same. Because the consensus reins in any outlier.

Between the tenth-best and twenty-best catcher, there doesn’t seem to be much difference. .260 or something, double-digit home runs… it may not sound exactly like that for each one, but it’s an approximate thing. Maybe a catcher in green in that group is more interesting than the rest just because he’s in green. Maybe it’s Alex Avila or Wilson Ramos, finally getting healthy.

Jesus Montero slid the furthest, and some might want him to slide further. But it isn’t like he has no upside, or that he can’t carve out a role for himself if he starts hitting. He’ll still be catcher-eligible, too. Victor Martinez was gone for a second, due to mental error on the part of the author, but he’s back now. And even if his line doesn’t look great, among the disasterpieces that make up catcher offense, he looks like a king.

But if you are vehemently against movement in this ranking, at least you won’t be mad about a ton of different players.

With the color-coding we hope to highlight the biggest movers. That definition changes as you follow the ranks down the list — players had to move more to register a color change as you near the bottom of the list. These are rest-of-season rankings for 5×5 roto. Jeff Zimmerman’s rankings are a combination of ZiPs and Steamer rest-of-season projections with playing time determined by our depth charts. You can find the projections on every player page and the depth charts here.

Also mentioned were Dioner Navarro and Wil Nieves.