Catcher ADP: Early Results

At the request of you, the readers, we are covering the early Average Draft Position (ADP) results by individual position  Over the past week, you’ve seen results for Second Basemen and AL Starting Pitchers, so now it’s time to cover the boys behind the plate.  Here are some early ADP results for the Catchers with a few thoughts added in.

Basics:

The column heading should speak for themselves, but just in case you’re new to this —

ADP — Average Draft Position (the average spot a player is taken which is compiled from 555 mixed 5×5 drafts on Mock Draft Central)

Earliest — the highest pick used on each particular player

Latest — the lowest pick used on a player (ND = not drafted)

Draft — percentage of leagues in which player was drafted

Overall Trend — the percentage increase/decrease of player’s ADP over last 2 weeks

While the actual ADP is the most important number to watch, the Overall Trend is likely the most helpful as you’ll be able to see whether or not a particular player is gaining popularity or losing ground and thus can be had later than expected.  Fluctuations between 0 and 10.0% and -10.0% and 0 are very minor and usually reflect movement no greater than a pick or two.  Anything fluctuations higher or lower from those parameters are the ones to take notice as they usually indicate round differentials.

Thoughts:

The abundance of negatives in the overall trends indicates that more people are choosing to wait on their catchers.  Obviously there are a few exceptions, but overall, once you get past the top five, no one seems to be in any kind of a rush to grab a backstop.

Carlos Santana’s ADP is right about on par with where the top catcher (formerly Joe Mauer) has gone in most drafts.  However, that early pick of 17 seems way too high for a player who still has batting average woes and plays a position that poses one of the highest risks for injury.  It doesn’t even matter if it’s a 10-team league.  Still too high.

It should be interesting to see the final numbers for Mauer and Matt Wieters this season.  While Mauer’s ADP seems significantly higher right now, they are trending in opposite directions.  Mauer’s ADP fluctuation is minimal right now, but Wieters’ is creeping up slowly but surely.  Their earliest/latest numbers seem to be the most telling right now.

If you’re ok with not having a top 5/6 catcher this season, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be difficult to obtain a quality player later on.  Once you get past Wieters, the next five are somewhat scattered between the 9th and 17th rounds.  To be able to grab Yadier Molina in the 15th round of a standard 12-team league, puts you in a pretty good position.  You’ve bulked up everywhere else and still end up with a top 10 catcher.

It looks like Nick Hundley (overall trend: 17.3%) is finally starting to get noticed.  Perhaps people are finally noticing his performance over the last two months of 2011.

Obviously a result of more two catcher leagues drafting, but there’s a serious run on backstops near the 230th pick (19th round of a 12-team league).

Interesting to see Devin Mesoraco’s ADP so much higher than that of Ryan Hanigan.  There hasn’t been any official word that Meso was going to be the primary and given Dusty Baker’s loyalty to his veterans and the time he’s given to Hanigan in the past, it seems like people are making quite a big assumption.  Obviously Meso is the better option of the two, but again, with Dusty, you never know…

Though Mock Draft Central only lists him as a DH, it’s worth noting that Jesus Montero’s current ADP is 171.33 with an earliest pick of 68 and has been drafted in 91.8% of the reporting leagues.  His overall trend is slightly up by 3.7% over the past two weeks.  It sounds as if his catcher eligibility isn’t too far out.