Catcher Tiers Update: June 2013

It’s time to update the catcher tiers again as we enter the month of June and look towards closing out the first half of the season soon. Two months in, things are starting to take shape a little more. The sample size of data is more plentiful and we’ve now seen those who started off slow begin to heat up finally while some of those hot starts have cooled significantly. Let’s take a look and see where everyone is falling into line.

The past two months Posey was sitting up here by himself, but both Molina and Mauer have really started to turn things up and each had a strong enough May to warrant placement in the top tier. They’re all batting over .300, they’re all showing some power and we’ve got quality runs scored and RBI for where each of them hit in the order. There might be a case for Molina to have actually surpassed Posey, but my money’s still on Buster for the rest of the season.

Joining the usual suspects here in the second tier is McCann who has easily proven that, when healthy, he is still money in the bank. The average is still a little meh, but the .282 ISO to open up his season is just too big to ignore. Rosario had a tough May which is why he’s now at the bottom of the tier rather than the top, but my confidence in him to pick it back up in June prevents me from dropping him a tier.

The new kid up here is Castro who has really started to blossom this season. The strikeout rate is still a little high and the .336 BABIP is certainly lending a hand, but he’s also drawing more walks and improved his average from the month of April. Lucroy and Perez get to stay here due to improvements they’ve finally made and Pierzynski gets to stay despite playing in just 13 games this month. No need to drop him a tier because of an injury as he’ll be back to his old self in no time. Last chance for V-Mart and Montero in this tier. If they don;t turn it around this month they’ll be dropped down more than just a few notches.

Real close to moving JPA up a tier due to his power. The average is still a disaster and he strikes out way too much, but 12 home runs at this point is still a pretty big deal behind the dish. After all, the power is what brings Salty up here, although, batting .268 overall helps him too. Doumit gets a bump in tier thanks to a strong month and with Oswaldo Arcia back in the minors, he’s back to regular playing time. Chooch is still hanging around here, but he could be dropped soon due to missing more than just a couple of weeks.

While Gattis’ power has been spectacular, the question of playing time from now through the rest of the season can’t be ignored. Should he continue to see ample at-bats through June, a bigger bump in tier is likely but for now we’ll just keep him here. Buck takes a significant drop which was, more or less, expected. You didn’t really think he was going to keep producing, did you? Despite the return of Grandal, Hundley stays put for now with Biogenesis questions looming.

No surprises here again. As stated above, Grandal’s placement will be better determined once we find out whether suspensions will be handed out again.

You’re definitely hurting behind the plate if your primary guy is found here. Even Shoppach, who gets a little boost now that he’s the main guy in Seattle, isn’t really going to help you much.

Montero takes the biggest drop of them all obviously as he sits on the DL in the minor leagues nowadays. Not only that, but the brass in Seattle say that he’s done as a catcher in their eyes. Maybe they’ll try him out at first, but he’s probably only going to find work as a DH these days. Zunino and d’Arnaud would have been ranked higher if I thought either would have some sort of an impact this season. Oh well…there’s always 2014.

Move along. Nothing left to see here.