Among a slew of pitchers, there are three catchers whose names appear on the list of most auctioned players in the ottoneu world: Jason Castro, Chris Iannetta and Yan Gomes.

Catcher has been a bit of an odd position this year, with pre-season favorites like Salvador Perez and Miguel Montero struggling; unexpected contributions from the likes of Josh Donaldson and Evan Gattis; and the early season suspensions to Yasmani Grandal and Carlos Ruiz. It’s no surprise that so many owners are trying to get this position figured out.

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Chances are many of you drafted Jonathan Lucroy to be your regular backstop this season. Chances are most of you don’t use him as your regular backstop anymore — and if you do, you probably don’t want to. The question, of course, is whether anyone should rely on him to contribute to their fantasy team from here on out because Lucroy kind of dangles in the purgatory as a guy people are loath to cut but nobody probably wants to trade for.

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Back in February of 2012, as we were getting ready to start discussing potential sleepers for the upcoming season, I wrote a quick piece on Astros catcher Jason Castro that, for lack of a better way to say it, was unflattering. I discussed his run of injuries, his coma-inducing levels of offensive production, and of course, the question of whether he was even worthy of a one dollar pick-up in even the deepest of leagues. The only comment the article received was from someone asking me how I would feel if I were Castro’s wife or mother and saw this piece and my response was both snarky and apropos for the time. Well here we are a year and three months down the road and based on the first two months of the 2013 season, it’s about time I apologized to the women in Castro’s life.

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When looking at Matt Wieters’ season compared to his past two, the only glaring difference is an extraordinarily low BABIP. He still has seven home runs, so the power is obviously there. His ISO is .192 compared to .186 and .188 in the last two seasons respectively. His walk rate is 9.1% compared to a career average of 9.0, and his strikeout rate is 18.8% compared to a career average of 18.5%.
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I have to admit that when I saw the most recent catcher rankings from the legendary RotoGraphs Four, I was a bit taken aback when I saw Evan Gattis ranked as the 16th best catcher, residing above the likes of players such as J.P . Arencibia, A.J. Ellis and Jarrod Saltalamacchia. Sure, his first month and a half of the season as an everyday player was an exciting, feel-good story — going from janitor contemplating suicide to heroic major league cult icon — but with both Brian McCann and Jason Heyward returning to the lineup, he was headed for more of a reserve role. To me, these rankings put far too much weight on past performance than expected production moving forward. Gattis was a great early-season novelty, but the knowledgeable fantasy owner was well aware that his time was up. Read the rest of this entry »

Before the season started, the catcher consensus rankings put Victor Martinez sixth overall and one ranker had him as high as fourth. Now that we’re two months in, Victor Martinez ranks dead last if you’re looking at wins above replacement and if you throw away defensive adjustments, he’s probably second to last, thanks to Miguel Montero.

Martinez owns a career .300/.367/.463 line and as recently as 2011, he hit .330/.380/.470 with a dozen home runs and 103 RBI. As catchers go, this is pretty darn valuable. Coming off of knee surgery that caused him to miss all of 2012, he was looking like a relative bargain, even if he took a little time to re-adjust after all the time off. Well, the time to re-adjust has passed and after 180 plate appearances, we have a catcher-eligible bat who resembles nothing like the old Victor Martinez, with a .221/.278/.307 slash line and a pair of home runs. Is it time to cut bait for owners? Is it time to buy low for the vultures?

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There were a pair of catchers caught violating Major League Baseball’s substance abuse policy this offseason but, because of the rather odd split between amphetamines and other drugs of abuse, Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz has 56 PAs in 16 games under his belt already this season while Yasmani Grandal is still a week away from joining the Padres for the first time this season.

Setting aside the issues I have with MLB’s differentiation between amphetamines and things like testosterone, Ruiz hasn’t exactly set the world on fire in his return from suspension, which probably helps those looking to target Grandal, since no one is looking to cash in on the next Chooch at this moment. Grandal is owned in just 3 percent of Yahoo! leagues and less than 0.5 percent of ESPN leagues, so there’s a very good chance he’s available. Those in two-catcher leagues should definitely look his way, since unlike most of the chaff on the wire, Grandal has a high ceiling and a decent shot of hitting it. Read the rest of this entry »

With the updated catcher rankings recently released and thoughts beginning to turn towards another set of tiers being issued at the end of the month, it’s time to look at a couple of backstops who had us a bit concerned after a tough month of April. A highly coveted choice on draft day, Salvador Perez was expected to do great things this year but struggled mightily at the plate to open the season, leaving many who grabbed him relatively early in their draft (eighth round or so) wondering if they made a mistake. Meanwhile, A.J. Ellis, who had an outstanding breakout season last year, was also counted on to produce with some consistency at the plate, but failed to show any semblance of power he once displayed and also struggled to hit with any regularity. But with the calendar flipping to May, both have caught fire and those owners who were ready to hit the panic button can start to breathe a little easier. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s time for the updated catcher ranks.

I do actually like the process of ranking players. It’s enjoyable to weight different inputs, and consider a player’s long-term track record as well as their short-term work. I like taking a look at the few things that stabilize quickly — contact and swing rates, and (soon) batted ball mix — and looking for legitimate change in the early season.

But it does seem to get us all riled up. And that can be exhausting.

It’s cool, it’s the way of the world. But the number one thing that seems to drive a lot of the discussion is power. And almost every power metric takes a long time to stabilize. Hit a couple of home runs and suddenly your ISO looks fine. Drive a few balls and your batted ball distance improves. As the weather improves, the balls go further.

So it’s not that worrisome to me that Jonathan Lucroy’s power is down. You didn’t own him for power anyway, and he’s still just as likely to hit ten out. Brian McCann doesn’t jump in the rankings because of the homers — well not because of the homers themselves, but because they represent possibly decent health — and Miguel Montero looks to be about the same as ever (with a ground-ball asterisk).

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After making the All-Star game in every full season of his career, Brian McCann ran into an injury plagued 2012 that saw him post a wRC+ of just 86, 30 points lower than his career average. To top it off, he only just returned from shoulder surgery yesterday and he is in his last year under contract with Atlanta. As the former perennial all-star is set to hit free agency, another bump in the road has crossed in front of him in Evan Gattis. McCann may still be headed for a big pay day, but he will have to battle for playing time when the Braves are healthy with what looks to be the team’s catcher of the future.
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