RotoGraphs June Consensus Ranks: Catcher

Of course it’s made sense to make trades all season, particularly for value. But now with a third of the season in the books, it makes a little more sense to trade for needs. And so positional rankings become important, particularly when paired with the tiered rankings that our writers will put out in the coming weeks. If you can dramatically improve at a problem position, do it. Especially if your drop at the other position, the one you’re selling, is not so drastic.

In any case, catchers have played out almost exactly like we thought at the beginning of the year: a few great catchers at the top (with a massive bummer of a season dropping Carlos Santana from that group), a couple middling guys (in the middle! now including my pre-season favorite in red), and then a group from about nine to 18 that is a real pick’em.

If you don’t get more than 450-500 plate appearances on average, you don’t have as many opportunities to distance yourself from the pack. This could happen at any position if we lopped off 1/3 of the playing time. But… .260/18? That sounds like most catchers to me.

Who do you like better or worse than our crew?

Again, this is for 5×5 roto, and though Jeff Zimmerman mostly uses the rest of season projections, it’s not just a computer ranking. We’ve left off the color coding in favor of a simple up or down arrow — those arrows are only next to big movers. The table is designed to be sortable in case you prefer one of the rankings.

RG	Player	Jeff	Zach	Mike	Eno
1	Buster Posey	1	1	1	1
2	Joe Mauer	2	2	4	3
3	Wilin Rosario	2	8	2	2
4	Jonathan Lucroy	8	3	3	5
5	Brian McCann	7	5	5	4
6	Yadier Molina	6	4	6	6
7	Evan Gattis	5	6	9	8
8	Carlos Santana	3	10	8	12
9	Salvador Perez	9	9	7	11
10	Yan Gomes	14	7	12	9
11	Miguel Montero	10	14	13	10
12	Devin Mesoraco	17	15	11	13
13	A.J. Pierzynski	16	13	16	17
14	Jason Castro	12	23	10	22
15	Derek Norris	21	18	15	18
16	Josmil Pinto	11	17	29	16
17	Jarrod Saltalamacchia	18	19	17	21
18	Wilson Ramos	33	11	19	14
19	Matt Wieters	13	36	20	15
20	John Jaso	26	12	27	19
21	Mike Zunino	15	25	23	27
22	Carlos Ruiz	19	27	26	20
23	Russell Martin	22	28	18	24
24	Yasmani Grandal	23	26	25	23
25	Welington Castillo	25	24	24	26
26	Alex Avila	20	29	21	30
27	Chris Iannetta	29	21	30	25
28	Kurt Suzuki	24	20	36	32
29	A.J. Ellis	32	23	22	35
30	Travis d’Arnaud	34	32	14	34
31	Dioner Navarro	28	22	28	36
32	Tyler Flowers	31	30	31	31
33	Hank Conger	36	31	33	26
34	Nick Hundley	27	36	35	33
35	Ryan Hanigan	36	33	34	29
36	Ryan Doumit	30	36	32	36

Ranked by one analyst: Josh Thole, Jordan Pacheco.