Archive for Catchers

Among the many surprises we witnessed during the 2012 season, the ridiculous year that A.J. Pierzynski had is probably one of the biggest. Based on the decline in his overall numbers over the last several years, a season in which he posted career-best totals in nearly every offensive category (including nose hair), after being a relative afterthought on draft day had fantasy owners completely baffled. Appreciative, yes, but baffled nonetheless. And now that he’s signed on to play for the Texas Rangers in 2013, the big question on everyone’s mind is whether or not he can do it again. Read the rest of this entry »

It seems as though Carlos Santana has been all figured out. I don’t mean that opposing pitchers have figured him out — that certainly isn’t the case. While pitchers struggle to get him out, various projection systems have him absolutely pegged.

The following table is a combination of various pre-season projections as well as his final line. The accuracy is pretty remarkable.

Everyone give a cap tip (and a follow) to our friend Dan Szymborski. He and his system came the closest to Santana’s actual numbers, but none of the projection systems were too far off base.
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For the regulars of RotoGraphs, you know that I covered the catchers all season and somewhere in the early goings of the second half, I finally put Buster Posey in the top tier, all by himself. Every other catcher to me was flawed in some way and for at least one way or another paled in comparison to the Giants backstop. Well, after looking at Zach Sanders’ Catcher End of Season Rankings and looking at Posey’s return value of $23, I would say that I was not wrong in my thinking. Posey is, indeed, a cut above the rest and is well-deserving of his number one ranking. Read the rest of this entry »

While the rest of the baseball community tries to make heads or tails out of yesterday’s Marlins/Blue Jays trade, a deal that only furthers the belief that Jeffrey Loria is one of the worst in the business, I’ll stick with Zach Sanders’ Catcher End of Season Rankings and scroll on down to a personal favorite of mine, at number seven, Miguel Montero. If you’ve owned him at any point over the last four seasons, then you know how valuable he can be in fantasy and if you haven’t, then you’re about to be let in on one of the best kept secrets at the catcher position. Read the rest of this entry »

With news that the Boston Red Sox have signed longtime Atlanta back-up David Ross, now would certainly be an appropriate time to look down Zach Sanders’ Catcher End of Season Rankings, scroll down to number 12 and take a look at Jarrod Saltalamacchia. With a breakout year that saw him play a career-high 121 games and post career-best numbers in the primary fantasy categories, save for average and on-base percentage, the Red Sox now face some tough decisions. Do they keep Salty as their primary backstop and keep Ross in the reserve role to which he is accustomed or do they deal Salty away and make room for a potential catcher platoon with Ross and upstart Ryan Lavarnway? Read the rest of this entry »

We’ll be doing a wrap-up of each position once the regular season comes to an official close, but for now, let’s talk about a few of the backstops who made significant contributions to fantasy teams this year, but are likely to be overvalued next season.  Whether their stats regress or whether they come at a significantly higher cost than they should, either draft pick or auction dollars, some of 2012’s fantasy heroes behind the dish just won’t measure up next season.  I’m sure most readers of RotoGraphs are wary of the pitfalls, but just in case you’re new to the scene, here are a few to watch out for next season. Read the rest of this entry »

There is always such a fuss made up over small sample sizes that often times a player is overlooked from year to year as fantasy owners in keeper leagues become hesitant to protect a player with merely a half a year’s experience in the majors. However, despite the increased depth at the catcher position, due to a heavy influx of young talent over the last few seasons, protecting Salvador Perez at this time might just be a shrewd move you can’t afford to pass up. Read the rest of this entry »

While most people spend a lot of their time scouting and researching a lot of these September call-ups, looking for even the slightest bit of fantasy contribution, players that are returning from extended stays on the DL are often overlooked by most owners.  And as often the case may be, plenty of them can still be of valuable service to you in your quest for a championship.  If players were dropped a while ago, chances are, some of these guys have slipped through the cracks and are available to you via the waiver wire.  Here are two who have been recently activated and have fairly low ownership percentages. Read the rest of this entry »

Just three weeks left to go in the regular season and all that hard work you’ve done over the last five-plus months will have finally paid off, so long as you’re staying on top of things.  And that means making the tough decisions at the end of the year.  Let’s face it…we’ve got great players that just aren’t producing right now and you need to make sure you fill in the blanks with guys who are.  Our own Michael Barr wrote a piece discussing the idea of cutting Brian McCann and then there are guys like Alex Avila who should have been cut even longer ago.  Even Matt Wieters is struggling to keep his average over the Mendoza line for the last 30 days.  If it’s a keeper league, you’ll probably have to bite the bullet.  But if it’s a re-draft league, it’s time to cut the dead weight and get a catcher in there that can help. Read the rest of this entry »

With the season winding down, I thought now is as good a time as any to ‘fess up and have a little it of accountability.  I usually do a full article at the end of the season that includes all of my picks and pans for the season, which will come at the conclusion of the season, but this year we all did a piece in a series called 10 Bold Predictions.  It was “go big or go home” for many of us and we wanted to be as bold and as brazen as possible while still maintaining certain bounds of sensibility.  In looking back at mine, perhaps I was a bit overzealous… Read the rest of this entry »