RotoGraphs Consensus Rankings: Catcher

by
March 3, 2013

Even though I personally find two-catcher leagues torture, I did have to pony up and get two guys in AL-LABR this weekend, so we thought we’d go pretty deep to help you out.

If you’re in a mixed league, with one catcher, it looks like you might as well wait until the end of your draft and spend less than your competitors. There’s a decent group at the top. A Mike Napoli / Brian McCann pairing would have plenty of upside and cost a lot less than Buster Posey.

But get down into the dregs of this position, and we know how bad it can get.

Nobody wants to end up starting John Buck. Or Geovany Soto.

(Here are the first basemen. Also note that the projections listed are from Steamer, and not all of the rankings are based on those numbers.)

RotoG ES JZ MP ZS name PA AVG R HR RBI SB
1 1 1 1 1 Buster Posey 538 0.302 72 19 77 2
2 2 2 2 2 Joe Mauer 533 0.299 64 10 60 3
3 3 4 5 3 Carlos Santana 549 0.247 70 20 71 3
4 5 3 3 5 Yadier Molina 474 0.287 54 12 58 5
5 4 5 7 4 Wilin Rosario 430 0.263 55 24 69 3
6 9 6 4 6 Victor Martinez 495 0.294 63 14 66 2
7 6 10 8 7 Matt Wieters 490 0.258 58 17 62 2
8 8 7 10 10 Jesus Montero 491 0.259 54 18 61 1
9 7 9 13 8 Miguel Montero 482 0.269 56 13 59 1
10 10 8 11 9 Salvador Perez 439 0.272 47 11 51 1
11 11 11 6 13 Mike Napoli 427 0.251 56 21 61 2
12 13 12 9 11 Jonathan Lucroy 416 0.266 43 10 47 4
13 14 14 15 12 A.J. Pierzynski 423 0.272 46 12 51 1
14 16 15 12 16 Ryan Doumit 452 0.262 49 13 53 1
15 12 13 14 20 Brian McCann 412 0.258 49 16 54 2
16 17 16 16 14 Carlos Ruiz 313 0.278 35 7 36 2
17 15 18 19 15 Alex Avila 401 0.254 49 11 47 2
18 21 19 18 17 John Jaso 386 0.247 45 8 37 3
19 23 17 17 21 Jordan Pacheco 323 0.275 32 5 34 3
20 22 20 21 22 Russell Martin 428 0.237 42 11 44 5
21 20 21 27 24 A.J. Ellis 405 0.244 39 7 38 1
22 24 23 23 23 Yasmani Grandal 272 0.252 28 7 30 1
23 27 27 22 18 J.P. Arencibia 334 0.225 39 15 44 1
24 19 26 32 19 Welington Castillo 322 0.238 33 11 38 1
25 29 29 20 25 Jarrod Saltalamacchia 301 0.23 35 12 37 1
26 18 22 40 27 Wilson Ramos 277 0.254 28 8 32 1
27 28 24 30 26 Rob Brantly 310 0.24 26 5 29 1
28 26 25 29 33 Ryan Hanigan 276 0.266 26 4 25 1
29 31 31 25 30 Jason Castro 294 0.242 30 6 28 1
30 36 34 24 29 Chris Iannetta 290 0.229 35 9 33 2
31 25 28 31 40 Tyler Flowers 346 0.215 39 13 40 3
32 32 33 28 34 Kurt Suzuki 267 0.243 24 6 27 1
33 30 35 33 31 Devin Mesoraco 192 0.235 20 6 22 1
34 34 30 26 40 Travis D’Arnaud 242 0.241 24 8 29 2
35 41 40 34 28 John Buck 259 0.225 25 8 28
36 35 37 40 32 David Ross 143 0.247 16 4 16 1
37 33 32 40 40 Ramon Hernandez 227 0.265 25 6 24 1
38 38 40 35 40 Nick Hundley 182 0.224 16 4 18 1
39 37 36 40 40 Ryan Lavarnway 196 0.236 22 6 22 1
40 39 40 40 40 Josh Thole 153 0.254 16 1 14 1

Other catchers ranked by one person: Jesus Flores, Michael Zunino, and Derek Norris.

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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.

23 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
THOR
13 years ago

what happened to MP’s 4th place vote?

-1
THOR
13 years ago

and ZS’s 6th place vote?

0
Eno SarrisMember since 2020
13 years ago
Reply to  THOR

Fixed, thanks.

0
filihok
13 years ago

‘”Others receiving votes: Jesus Flores, Michael Zunino, and Derek Norris.”

???

0
Eno SarrisMember since 2020
13 years ago
Reply to  filihok

They only got ranked by one of us.

0
Zimm
13 years ago

any thoughts on where VMart would rank, seeing how he retains C eligibility in Yahoo leagues?

1
imnotanartard25
13 years ago
Reply to  Zimm

He appears to retain C eligibility in ESPN leagues as well.

1
Matt
13 years ago
Reply to  Zimm

Also curious to find out where VMart would rank on this list

0
Eno SarrisMember since 2020
13 years ago
Reply to  Matt

VMart is in there now.

0
imnotanartard25
13 years ago

Is Victor Martinez absent because he missed last season, or?

1
JT
13 years ago

Perez is projected to only hit .272? He hasn’t hit under 300 in the last three years, where does this come from?

0
Ender
13 years ago
Reply to  JT

None of the projection systems give him a .300 AVG. It is pretty hard to hit .300 with that skillset so they just don’t seem to believe he can keep it up.

0
Jeff ZimmermanFanGraphs Staff
13 years ago
Reply to  JT

He has less than 500 PA in the majors and only played in 2 seasons.

0
Ender
13 years ago

For lack of a better word single C mixed leagues are just dumb. The position is just too deep and it makes all of the C useless. Two C only leagues are kind of dumb too though since there aren’t even enough starting jobs to fill all of the rosters.

-10
juan pierres mustache
13 years ago
Reply to  Ender

so…is the answer a 1.5 catcher league or should we just give up on fantasy baseball altogether? i’m lost here.

12
jim
13 years ago
Reply to  Ender

#analysis

6
WCoop
13 years ago
Reply to  jim

That just made my day. #smitten

0
majnun
13 years ago
Reply to  Ender

Four catcher leagues or bust

2
Phil
13 years ago

McCann drove the getaway car when Votto stole Zach’s girlfriend.

2
TakMember since 2025
13 years ago

V-Mart only hitting 66 steaks seems like a gross underestimation to me, hitting behind 2, maybe 4, .300 BA guys.

0
tylersnotes
13 years ago

thinking about this, since you’re showing steamer projections here it might be valuable to also show the steamer rankings. this information is already available on the projections pages (maybe just for fg+ subscribers) in the form of $ value. It could be a good control group to compare against the 4 analysts/”consensus ranking”

1
BenFranklin17
13 years ago

I can snag Posey with the 20th pick in a 16 tm 1C OBP league. Should I pull the trigger on this, or hold off on a catcher til later??

0
Posterity
13 years ago

“Nobody wants to end up starting John Buck.”

#baseball.

3