Archive for Jorge Posada

Erik Hahmann pointed out a couple of gems in Ottoneu playoff pick six for Tuesday and I’d like to grab the baton and run with a few more, because looking over the names available, there are some real interesting opportunities today.

Jorge Posada ($1.00)

The ragged old backstop has been pretty much guaranteed to appear as DH throughout the Division Series and tonight he’ll face Rick Porcello. Posada has eleven at bats against Porcello and he’s 3-9 with a double and two walks. That’s not much of a sample size, but on the season, Posada was really quite solid against right handed pitching, posting a .269/.348/.466 triple slash and managed to hit 14 home runs in 279 at bats.

Porcello struggles versus lefties, giving up 14 home runs in just a little over 100 innings pitched this season. Against lefties, his FIP is 4.51 and his xFIP is 4.16, in part due to a HR/FB of 12.1% and BABIP of .347 vs. lefties, but he’s pretty well earned most of it as his xBABIP sits at about .320. Fully 13 of the 18 home runs he’s given up this season have either had plenty of distance or classified as no doubters by ESPN Home Run Tracker, so it’s not like he’s giving up cheapies either. I look for Posada to square the ball up pretty well this evening.

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The catcher position, with respect to fantasy baseball has seen quite the inundation of new talent.  There was a time when, if you didn’t own one of the big three — Joe Mauer, Brian McCann, Victor Martinez — it didn’t really matter who you had as your backstop.  Sure, there were some that were more productive than others, but overall, there were numerous interchangeable players and whether you grabbed one in the 9th round or in the 15th round, it didn’t make much difference.  Now, with blossoming stars like Carlos Santana, Buster Posey, Alex Avila, and Matt Wieters, things are looking a little different.  The position is much deeper and production is on the rise.  One of these rising stars, though, has an interesting future ahead of him and fantasy owners will have some tough decisions to make.  What will come of Jesus Montero in 2012?

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Time to re-visit those monthly rankings, again.  As always, the criteria used for these is as follows:

1.  Current performance level
2.  Expected performance for rest of season
3.  Value based on standard 5×5 categories (avg over OBP)

One note, despite the fact that it is late in the season, we are not accounting for keeper value right now.  We are staying within the parameters of this season alone.  Injured players remain on the list at the bottom so we can just see who was up there from start to finish.  That being said, here’s how the catching position looks right now…. Read the rest of this entry »

As the season moves on, things are really settling in with the catcher rankings.  Not a whole lot of movement from tier to tier (almost none), but some movement within.  Remember, the criteria used for the rankings is as follows:

1.  Current performance level
2.  Expected performance for rest of season
3.  Value based on standard 5×5 categories (avg over OBP)

Here’s how it looks heading into July. Read the rest of this entry »

As we get ready to head into a new month, it’s time to update the 2011 Catchers Rankings once again.  Remember, the criteria for these rankings is as follows:

The arrows are used to highlight a player moving up or down in tier, but you’ll also notice some minor tweaks within the tiers as well.  Some that will obviously have more impact than others. Read the rest of this entry »

With the calendar flipping to May, it’s time to re-visit the 2011 Catcher Rankings and see who has climbed closer to the top and who’s been dropping like a stone.  As you may recall, the RotoGraph writers got together before the season began and constructed a composite catcher rankings.  However, after gaining some feedback from all of you, I have decided to make my adjustments to the rankings based on the following criteria:

The arrows are used to highlight a player moving up or down in tier, but you’ll also notice some minor tweaks within the tiers as well.  Some that will obviously have more impact than others.  So without further ado, you may now cue the theme song to The Jeffersons… Read the rest of this entry »

It’s backstop day at the RG, as we debuted our rankings and then profiled the top five targets and some deep sleepers. Now it’s time to look at the middle of the rankings, identify some guys that are falling in this year’s drafts, and decide if they merit more love.

Matt Wieters
Once projected to be a superstar in his rookie season, the shine has seemingly come off of Wieters, and he’s all the way down to near-double digits in our rankings. Here’s a thing I discovered while researching this piece about Carlos Santana, however: it does seem that catchers take a little longer to develop their offense. Whether it’s because they focus on defense and game calling first, or because they are one of the worst offensive positions overall, it takes a few years. Switch-hitting catchers from Victor Martinez to Jason Varitek and Jorge Posada all took until 25 or later to bust out. Wieters is 24 and that, as well as his minor league record, is probably the best statistic in his favor. With incremental improvements in his walk rate, strikeout rate, swinging strike rate, and ISO, there are other statistics that back up the idea that perhaps Wieters shouldn’t be sliding this far. Consider taking him slightly ahead of his ADPs (130.04 at MDC, 111.2 at Yahoo) in order to snag his upside.

Jorge Posada
If age is the reason to be up-beat about Matt Wieters, then it’s the reason that Jorge Posada is falling in drafts and rankings this year. And of course we have to temper any expectations that we might have for him because of his age. The record for at-bats for a catcher over 39 is Carlton Fisk with 454 (second is Fisk at 452, third is Bob Boone at 405, and those are the only seasons over 400). Fisk is also the only person to ever hit more than double-digit home runs after 39, as he hit 23 at 39, 19 at 40, 13 at 41 and 18 at 42. So, if you’re taking Posada, you’re basically hoping he’ll be the best or second- best old catcher ever. Of course, that’s possible, because Posada’s 22 home runs in 2009 were the third-best number ever by a catcher over 37. He’s done it before. Oh, and he’s going to DH this year, which will have to be counted as a positive even if he hasn’t done so well in that role before. It should, at the very least, help him get more ABs.

Miguel Montero
Montero is young-ish (27), and once hit .294 with 16 home runs, and yet he’s falling in drafts this year (125.6 ADP in MDC, 158.2 in Yahoo). The ADPs might be reasonable, but is he worth picking after the tenth round is completed? Maybe (hah). A full, healthy season from Montero could produce a home run total in the mid-teens and a decent batting average for a catcher, judging from his career .267 number in the category. Can he stay healthy? He’s only officially hit the DL twice in his carer – for right knee surgery in 2010 (62 days missed) and for a fractured finger in 2008 (31 days missed) – and yet he’s averaged only 313 PAs since 2007. It looks like Montero is best drafted as part of a quantity, not quality approach late in your drafts. Pick him and Posada late in the game and you’ll probably have a decent catcher this year, one way or the other.

The 2011 baseball season is almost upon us, so we here at RotoGraphs put our collective heads together to come up with some aggregate positional rankings.  I’ll be taking the lead all year with the catchers, but as a group, here’s what we came up with for now:

Despite last year’s power decline, we know the potential is there so Mauer gets the nod for the top spot.  Welcome to the big time, Buster!

Happy to have any one of these guys on my roster.  Santana is on the rise, but this could be the last chance for Wieters in the fantasy trust department.

Stable group of guys who can just tow the line for your backstop position.  Martin could be a nice sleeper in hitter-friendly Yankee Stadium.

No major investment needs to be made here.  Some will rise, some will fall.  Arencibia’s power potential puts him at the top of the sleeper list.

Maybe a pair of diamonds in the rough in Lucroy and Snyder, but I wouldn’t want to invest more than a buck on the rest of the lot.

You’ve got to be pretty desperate to be living with these guys on your roster.

We’ll all be chiming in throughout the week with more detailed thoughts on some of the backstops and the overall rankings will be updated on a monthly basis, so stay tuned for more!

Earlier in the week we showed that you can still get a comparative advantage over your fellow drafters by drafting an elite catcher that will rack up 10-12% more plate appearances than other catchers. But that’s only half the picture – what the catchers do with their plate appearances is the rest of the picture. If you can’t get too much of a comparative advantage in terms of the other statistics, the plate appearances won’t matter much.

In order to do that, we’ll take a look at some of the projections for catchers that should go early and catchers that go later. We’ll use draft picks from the Stupidly Early Mock Draft over at RotoHardball.com to approximate ADP (but there’s more help coming from RG when it comes to rankings and mocks, don’t worry).

First, let’s just take the Bill James projections for the top 12 catchers, grouped not in tiers, but just in groups of four. These jerry-rigged tiers will allow us to compare the top, middle, and bottom catchers without too much discussion about getting them into the correct tiers. A straight average of the groups should put this into focus.

2.10 Joe Mauer .338 BA, 15 HR, 3 SB, 93 R, 87 RBI
4.1 Brian McCann .280 BA, 24 HR, 4 SB, 68 R, 94 RBI
4.2 Victor Martinez .298 BA, 19 HR, 1 SB, 69 R, 88 RBI
4.3 Buster Posey .308 BA, 21 HR, 1 SB, 74 R, 83 RBI

Top-“Tier” Average: .306 BA, 20 HR, 2 SB, 76 R, 88 RBI

7.5 Geovany Soto .276 BA, 20 HR, 0 SB, 56 R, 72 RBI
7.8 Carlos Santana .280 BA, 22 HR, 7 SB, 83 R, 91 RBI
9.4 Matt Wieters .288 BA, 16 HR, 0 SB, 55 R, 74 RBI
12.11 Mike Napoli .246 BA, 24 HR, 4 SB, 62 R, 66 RBI

Mid-“Tier” Average: .273 BA, 21 HR, 3 SB, 64 R, 76 RBI

14.6 Jorge Posada .260 BA, 16 HR, 2 SB, 49 R, 60 RBI
14.7 Miguel Montero .273 BA, 14 HR, 0 SB, 51 R, 58 RBI
15.9 Ryan Hanigan .281 BA, 5 HR, 0 SB, 39 R, 37 RBI
16.12 Kurt Suzuki .266 BA, 13 HR, 4 SB, 65 R, 73 RBI

Bottom-“Tier” Average: .270 BA, 12 HR, 1 SB, 51 R, 57 RBI

It looks like you get what you pay for, but the middle tier might get you the best value. The bottom tier looks pretty bad, but if you replace Hanigan with John Buck, whose projections are a little rosier (.248 BA, 17 HR, 0 SB, 47 R, 60 RBI), then your averages for the bottom tier look a little nicer – .262 BA, 15 HR, 53 R, 63 RBI.

While the top three in plate appearances will show a comparative advantage over the rest of the field, plate appearances can be hard to predict. Going by projected performance, it looks like the best plan may be to wait, but not wait too long.

Did you know that only seven catchers qualified for the major league batting title last year? 16 second basemen did, too, and they were the second-least represented group. The most amount of plate appearances accrued by a catcher was 584 by Joe Mauer. Centerfielders had the second-worst leader by PAs, and that was Denard Span with 705 plate appearances. No matter where you draft your catcher, you’ll be getting fewer opportunities to accrue counting stats from your catcher.

There are some nice catchers near the top of the rankings, and there is certainly some advantage to be gained by picking a stud at the position. The argument might go that you can rack up comparatively more plate appearances by getting one of the top six or seven guys, even if their absolute plate appearances don’t stack up against other positions. Well, we can test, this right?

When compared to the top 12 catchers by plate appearances alone, here are the comparative plate appearances that the top three catchers can provide, with 100 equaling the average for the top 12.

Joe Mauer = 115
Brian McCann = 111
Kurt Suzuki = 107

Let’s compare that to second basemen, who seem to have similar problems accruing plate appearances. The top three secondbase dudes by plate appearances:

Rickie Weeks = 114
Chone Figgins = 106
Robinson Cano = 105

Well, look at that – and I don’t mean the delicious irony that Rickie Weeks led second basemen in plate appearances. Good thing we went into this without preconceptions, because it looks like you can gain an advantage against your leaguemates by snatching up one of the catchers that comes to the plate regularly. It’s kind of crazy to think, but Jorge Posada, with his 451 plate appearances, came to the plate more often compared to his peers than Aaron Hill with his 580 plate appearances.

Of course, none of this factors in the actual projections for the catchers near the bottom of your rankings, a topic we’ll tackle later in the week.