The other day, my wife asked me what my next column was going to be about, and I told her it would be my annual Bold Predictions piece. She wanted to contribute a prediction, and when I asked her what it would be, I realized it would be the perfect addition to this column.
So the first-ever Bold Prediction for Mary Beth Melchior is this: J.T. Realmuto will break the all-time single-season record for home runs for a catcher.
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Sorry for the title. Let’s move on. At the start of this season, I recommended J.T. Realmuto as someone deep-league managers should target for his speed and his price. At the time, Realmuto was coming off a season in which he led his position in stolen bases during a year in which steals were at a 20 year low. He was also going 17th overall at catcher in public leagues, despite being picked 10th in NFBC drafts. Given that Realmuto popped 10 homers while lacking the typical red flags of a regression candidate, he seemed criminally overlooked during drafts and possibly primed for a breakout. So how’d he do?
So here you are, a month from Opening Day, reading a Deep League Waiver Wire column. If you’re actually perusing the wire, it’s either because you’re one of the few fantasy owners who’s already drafted or, like me, you’re frantically patching holes in a sinking fantasy Spring Training team that’s been decimated by injuries.
I’m writing this weekly column to help those of you looking at rather threadbare free agent pools find suitable replacements, Plan Bs, and maybe if we strike gold together, some…gold. This week, we focus on a couple overlooked catchers who are either going late in drafts or not at all. So, let’s go digging.
It’s hard to call J.T. Realmuto under the radar when he appeared here on FanGraphs’ Top 200 preseason, Baseball America’s Top-100 and Keith Law’s Top-100 (Insider required), yet here we are. Realmuto finished as the ninth best catcher among according to our End of Season Rankings despite ranking a modest 21st in our Mid Season Update. His .259/.290/.406 line translates to an 86 wRC+, though he still managed to be fantasy relevant in a fair amount of leagues. Realmuto smacked 10 home runs and even stole eight bags in his 467 plate appearances, with the steals leading all catchers with at least 300 PAs. Read the rest of this entry »