Catchers, Continued
Earlier in the week we showed that you can still get a comparative advantage over your fellow drafters by drafting an elite catcher that will rack up 10-12% more plate appearances than other catchers. But that’s only half the picture – what the catchers do with their plate appearances is the rest of the picture. If you can’t get too much of a comparative advantage in terms of the other statistics, the plate appearances won’t matter much.
In order to do that, we’ll take a look at some of the projections for catchers that should go early and catchers that go later. We’ll use draft picks from the Stupidly Early Mock Draft over at RotoHardball.com to approximate ADP (but there’s more help coming from RG when it comes to rankings and mocks, don’t worry).
First, let’s just take the Bill James projections for the top 12 catchers, grouped not in tiers, but just in groups of four. These jerry-rigged tiers will allow us to compare the top, middle, and bottom catchers without too much discussion about getting them into the correct tiers. A straight average of the groups should put this into focus.
2.10 Joe Mauer .338 BA, 15 HR, 3 SB, 93 R, 87 RBI
4.1 Brian McCann .280 BA, 24 HR, 4 SB, 68 R, 94 RBI
4.2 Victor Martinez .298 BA, 19 HR, 1 SB, 69 R, 88 RBI
4.3 Buster Posey .308 BA, 21 HR, 1 SB, 74 R, 83 RBI
Top-“Tier” Average: .306 BA, 20 HR, 2 SB, 76 R, 88 RBI
7.5 Geovany Soto .276 BA, 20 HR, 0 SB, 56 R, 72 RBI
7.8 Carlos Santana .280 BA, 22 HR, 7 SB, 83 R, 91 RBI
9.4 Matt Wieters .288 BA, 16 HR, 0 SB, 55 R, 74 RBI
12.11 Mike Napoli .246 BA, 24 HR, 4 SB, 62 R, 66 RBI
Mid-“Tier” Average: .273 BA, 21 HR, 3 SB, 64 R, 76 RBI
14.6 Jorge Posada .260 BA, 16 HR, 2 SB, 49 R, 60 RBI
14.7 Miguel Montero .273 BA, 14 HR, 0 SB, 51 R, 58 RBI
15.9 Ryan Hanigan .281 BA, 5 HR, 0 SB, 39 R, 37 RBI
16.12 Kurt Suzuki .266 BA, 13 HR, 4 SB, 65 R, 73 RBI
Bottom-“Tier” Average: .270 BA, 12 HR, 1 SB, 51 R, 57 RBI
It looks like you get what you pay for, but the middle tier might get you the best value. The bottom tier looks pretty bad, but if you replace Hanigan with John Buck, whose projections are a little rosier (.248 BA, 17 HR, 0 SB, 47 R, 60 RBI), then your averages for the bottom tier look a little nicer – .262 BA, 15 HR, 53 R, 63 RBI.
While the top three in plate appearances will show a comparative advantage over the rest of the field, plate appearances can be hard to predict. Going by projected performance, it looks like the best plan may be to wait, but not wait too long.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
I’m assuming that the numbers on the left are Round.Pick, correct? That makes Napoli a steal if you’re looking to punt AVG or have enough hitters with nice AVG’s to make up for him.
So I’ve got Mauer and can keep up to five players. Right now I’m keeping him because of the difference in performance between an elite catcher and an average catcher is really significant. But Mauer isn’t looking so much better than that second tier right now. Hmm.
I’ll probably keep him though. The question then becomes, should I draft a backup catcher from either of the two lower brackets? Mauer is likely not to put up that many PA’s next season. But should I use a mid-level draft pick or hope to catch lightning in a bottle with a longshot in the final rounds for my backup?
Clearly you keep Mauer – no question there. Assuming your league only uses one catcher spot, skip the second catcher and draft a risky, high ceiling SP late in the draft instead.
what i’ve been saying this offseason is that posada will be a DH this year, but will still have C eligibility. VMart will probably DH more as well. So Posada, and maybe VMart, won’t have the rigors of catching draining them all season long, letting them stay healthier (more PA) and should perform better without the nagging injuries that catching causes. Posada will be go much later than VMart and may accrue more counting stats because of staying in the lineup longer at DH.
I’m gonna be that guy and give away the secret. In this game we play… the guy you want is Napoli. He’s the only catcher not named McCann who will get you 23-30 HR out of that pain in the ass position. And he doesn’t cost anywhere close to McCann.
I’ll take Suzuki in round 16 over Napoli in the 12th.
In my league at least, the impact of a poor average will likely cost you more points than ten fewer HR out of the C position.
http://ducksonthepondkid.wordpress.com/2011/01/22/so-whats-the-deal-with-the-vernon-wells-mike-napoli-deal/
how will this deal affect the catchers involved on both teams?