Catching Hell: Rookie Backstops Won’t Save Your Season

There was a time in fantasy baseball when prospect call-ups barely registered on the radar. I know that sounds crazy given how much we as a community overreact to them now, but when I first started playing there were maybe a handful of call-ups we were waiting for in-season and even then, expectations were tempered. Today, we often have outsized expectations attached to prospects which lead to a lot of disappointment. The newest names almost sure to disappoint the fantasy community are catchers Blake Swihart and Austin Hedges.

The two backstops are widely regarded as two of the very best up-and-comers in baseball. In fact, Swihart is almost universally regarded as the very best catching prospect in the game. And some believe Hedges has been defensively ready for years, though his bat was weak enough to land him at 130th on Kiley’s top 200. Swihart has a bright offensive future, but both draw much of their acclaim from the defensive standpoint. I recommend not getting too excited about either catcher on the fantasy landscape just yet, though.

First off, just 11 catchers in the last five years have logged rookie efforts with at least 250 PA. That is a generous playing time cutoff to get some more guys in the sample, but getting ~50 PA a month the rest of the way from a C2 is enough to deliver some value. The collection of 11 rookies does include Buster Posey’s huge rookie season (.305 AVG, 18 HR, and 67 RBIs) and Wilin Rosario’s coming out party in Coors (.270, 28, 71), but the production really gets thin after those two.

Wilson Ramos (.267, 15, 52) and Travis d’Arnaud (.242, 13, 41) were both solid, but then J.P. Arencibia was the only other catcher with double-digit homers (23), though he canceled a lot of the value out with a .219 AVG. Francisco Cervelli was only one of the remaining six to hit .270 or better. The rest is wholly uninspiring including Jonathan Lucroy’s .253 AVG, 4 HR, and 26 RBI campaign in 297 PA. All 11 guys weren’t highly acclaimed prospects coming up, but even looking at a list of the top catching prospects from 2010 isn’t terribly heartening if you have high hopes for Swihart or Hedges to save your season at the position.

First off, do you even remember who was regarded as the best catcher prospect back in 2010? It’s not Posey. This guy was seen as someone who’d come off catcher eventually, but he was still regarded as a can’t-miss hitter who would at least deliver a couple years of behind-the-dish eligibility. Give up? It was Jesus Montero. He was coming off of a .951 OPS season as a 19-year old with 17 HR and 70 RBI in just 92 games.

He backed the hype and put up an .870 OPS in that 2010 season as a 20-year old in Triple-A. You obviously know how this ends, or at least how it’s gone since then. Montero has a career .698 OPS in 749 major league PA, with just 127 of those PA in the last two seasons. He’s no longer regarded as a catcher, either, with just one game behind the dish since 2013.

Posey was usually second to the Montero on lists and of course he has panned out well beyond expectations with a Rookie of the Year, an MVP, and of course three World Series titles. He has essentially delivered on the hype that was given to Matt Wieters a couple years ahead of Posey. Most fantasy players are dreaming of a Posey return when they invest in the next big thing behind the dish which is the quickest way to wind up extremely disappointed.

Carlos Santana is another guy who was seen as a hitter first, catcher second. He only got 192 PA in his rookie season, but he was excellent in that time (.868 OPS, 6 HRs) and has just continued to hit since, though his catching days are almost certainly done. He caught a career-low 11 games last year and wasn’t considered to return to the position even after the Yan Gomes injury. So we have two big hits in a row with Posey and Santana, but don’t get used to it.

Other noteworthy names populating prospect lists behind the dish back in 2010 include: Derek Norris, Devin Mesoraco, Tyler Flowers, Tony Sanchez, and Hank Conger.

• Norris put up a 73 wRC+ in 232 PA during his 2012 rookie season. He was better in 2013 (114 wRC+, 9 HR in 308 PA), but didn’t really break out until last year. [Rookie fantasy numbers: .201 AVG, 7 HR, 34 RBI, 19 R, and 5 SB in 232 PA]

• Mesoraco was looking like a bust through his first three seasons (70 wRC+ in 589 PA) before last year’s huge breakout (25 HR, 80 RBI), but injuries have limited him throughout his career and currently have him on the shelf for the Reds (though not on the DL for some reason). [Rookie fantasy numbers: .212 AVG, 5 HR, 14 RBI, 17 R, and 1 SB in 184 PA]

• Flowers couldn’t find regular playing time until 2013 (476 total PA from 2009-12) and he still hasn’t found even league average in wRC+ (career-high of 94), though he did pop 15 HR last year and found some value on the fantasy landscape. [Rookie fantasy numbers: .209 AVG, 5 HR, 16 RBI, 13 R, and 0 SB in 129 PA]

• Sanchez has, well… let’s just move on from 2009’s #4 overall pick as it hasn’t gone well. [Rookie fantasy numbers: .267 AVG, 2 HR, 13 RBI, 3 R, and 0 SB in 80 PA]

• Conger was supposed to have the bat and maybe end up as one of those guys who moves off of catcher eventually because he is too valuable as a hitter. He has struggled to find consistent playing time and thus struggled to produce, relegating him to a backup role behind Jason Castro, who coincidentally was a big prospect himself, but didn’t deliver anything of note until his fourth season in the majors. [Rookie fantasy numbers: .209 AVG, 6 HR, 19 RBI, 14 R, and 0 SB]

This is just a sampling from five years ago and it obviously doesn’t mean that Swihart and Hedges can’t be successful, but the odds are against them, especially at this position. Catching is such a massive responsibility that teams will consistently tell their young backstops to focus on handling the staff and learning the nuances of catching at the big league level before focusing on hitting thus a team may continue to run a guy out there with his 65 wRC+ plus because they see big strides in his defense and they trust the offense can re-emerge later.

It’s almost unfair to Swihart to lump these two together as his offensive future is much brighter than Hedges’ right now. Kiley tabs him with a potential 55 hit tool and 50 game power, but gives both a 30 right now. Swihart has never really been bad as a minor leaguer, but he hasn’t lit it up during his ascent like we saw Montero, Posey, and Santana do, either. Last year was his first season north of .800 OPS and double-digit homers (.810 and 13). A solid, though punchless, start to 2015 (.338/.392/.382) brings him career minor league line to .287/.341/.428 in 1331 PA with 22 HR and 170 RBI.

Hedges, meanwhile, needed a fast start in Triple-A (.324/.392/.521) to push his career OPS north of .700 in 1284 PA (.256/.316/.390). In fact, Hedges has dropped his OPS year-to-year, bottoming out with last year’s horrid .589 in 457 PA at Double-A. Kiley thinks he could have a 40 hit/40 power future, but currently grades at 20/20. That’s not the kind of 20/20 we like in fantasy baseball. Ideally it’d be 20 HR and 20 SB, but even if it was only 20/20 vision, it’d be better Hedges’ 20/20.

Additionally, Hedges is unlikely to be anything close to a full-time starter. He’ll be competing with the aforementioned Derek Norris for time. Despite Norris’ 20 SBs allowed (second-worst only to Cervelli’s 24), he is doing more than enough at the dish (.843 OPS) to maintain starter status. Injuries have opened up the role for Swihart in Boston. We thought he might get a call when Christian Vazquez went down with Tommy John back in late-March, but then it was all-but-guaranteed when Ryan Hanigan fractured his hand a few days ago. Sandy Leon is the only other catcher on the roster and he isn’t going to take time from Swihart.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t roster Swihart or anything like that because he’s a starter on a high-quality offense. Rather I think the expectations placed on prospect catchers need to be severely toned down. They are even more unlikely to be instant contributors than rookies at other positions and even when they do pan out on their lofty prospect status, it usually takes a couple of years. I’d be looking to trade Swihart right now more than anything else. Catchers aren’t a great investment in fantasy baseball and that goes double for the unproven ones. Just ask the Mike Zunino fanboys.