2023 Catcher Preview - Tiers 4-7
We’re rolling with positional previews on the SubStack! I put out catchers v1 yesterday, which you can check out here:
The positional breakdown series is free for all - but you will need to become a paid sub to get everything I do here.
In that first post, we covered the top seven catchers, which I tiered into three groups. Now we’ll finish out the position. I’m not even sure how far this is going to go at this point, so I’ll find out around the same time as you do!
Tier 4
MJ Melendez
William Contreras
Sean Murphy
Tyler Stephenson
Melendez
It wasn’t a great debut for Melendez hitting just .217/.313/.393, but he porked 18 homers in 534 PAs - so he made his fantasy hay with that one category basically.
It’s surprising to see Melendez’s price where it is - but it’s a testament to the sharpness of the field these days. Melendez’s appeal is his strong 10.4% Brl% and 24.6% K% - good marks for a young guy (he turned 24 in November). The biggest appeal for me is that he has the catcher eligibility without playing primarily behind the plate. Right now he is projected to play outfield and lead off for the Royals on Opening Day - so it’s basically Daulton Varsho 2022 all over again - and that turned out quite well.
So we have a guy that should get plenty of reps as long as he’s healthy, and there’s certainly some power there. And he’s also kind of fast (61st percentile sprint speed). It would seem that there is like 20-15 potential here while logging 500+ PA, so I can’t really sneeze at the price.
At the end of last year, I really thought Melendez would be my most-drafted catcher, but with the price that hasn’t turned out to be true - but I still like him quite a bit.
Contreras
Contreras #2 here - William got moved to the Brewers this offseason and plenty of people are liking that for him. He debuted last year and hit a bunch of homers (20 HR in 375 PA), and hit the ball extremely hard when making contact (.347 xwOBA, 13.4% Brl%, 115.2 max velo). However, he hit a ton of ground balls and had a very high HR/FB that benefited him. He hit 57 fly balls and saw 20 of them go over a fence, that was the 9th-highest HR/FB of the last two seasons:
The move to Milwaukee and the raw power will likely help him put up another high HR/FB, but chances are he comes down from that 35% mark.
This stuff is all taken into account by projections, and the ASS has him for 20 bombs, 62 RBI, a steal, and a .246 batting average - not bad at all!
This is really the catcher tier I love because these guys are still quite good hitters and they are a lot more affordable - so yeah, I’m fine with Contreras even though I do expect the home run rate to come down quite a bit.
Murphy
A part of the William Contreras move was the fact that the Braves acquired Sean Murphy from Oakland and then immediately extended him to a long-term contract. They have maintained Travis d’Arnaud - but you would think Murphy would be the primary catcher. Since the Braves like d’Arnaud, and the guy is clearly a good player - we might see something pretty close to a 60/40 split of the playing time.
On a worse team, there may be a good amount of DH reps there for whichever catcher isn’t behind the dish - but that’s less likely with the Braves loaded team, although I assume these guys will get 10 or so DH starts.
Anyways, Murphy is a good hitter and we’re quickly running out of those at the catcher position. Over the last two seasons he has a 10.9% Brl%, a 7.2% Brl/PA and a really strong 22.5%. Escaping Oakland is amazing for him, and I personally don’t think the price came up enough after that trade. Murphy right now is my most commonly drafted catcher, and it might stay that way.
Stephenson
It was largely a lost season for Stephenson last year making just 183 PAs, but he crushed with a .319/.372/.482 slash line, hitting six homers over that time.
Over the last two seasons, Stephenson has a 20.9% K%, a 5.7% Brl%, and a .258 xBA. He does not have much raw power, but he makes a lot of contact, plays in a great ballpark, and will get some 1B and DH run.
There might even be some extra power in the bat now since he’s still young (26), and you don’t need a super high barrel rate to rack up some homers in Cincinnati. The appeal of Stephenson is playing time and batting average - but there’s probably not a ton of upside outside of that.
The average projection on him is 54 R, 14 HR, 58 RBI, and a .265 AVG. I’d probably rather pay for Murphy or Melendez over him, but if he’s the only one left from these top four tiers and I’m on the clock without a catcher - I’m probably taking him.
Tier 5
Cal Raleigh
Danny Jansen
Travis d’Arnaud
Gabriel Moreno
We still have talented hitters here, and we’re 11 catchers deep - this is incredible!
Raleigh
Big-time pop (13.2% Brl%, 114 max velo, 29% GB%), but a strikeout problem (29.4% K%). This doesn’t feel a ton different than Mike Zunino of the last couple of seasons, but the guy is at least young (26).
I think the late-season performance really got people’s attention to Raleigh - and that just might be showing up a little bit in the ADP.
Can he lead the position in homers? Yes! Will he do it if he maintains a 28%+ K% - almost surely not. I’m also not sure how many PAs there are for him, he DH’d just once last year so there’s no guarantee he’ll do more in that regard this year. He’s almost surely going to be a bad batting average, so you’ll be reliant on those HRs and RBI to pay off the draft cost.
At this point in the draft, you’re giving up something major with catcher - so I’m more or less fine with at least taking a guy I know can hit some dingers - but I’d much rather have a guy in the tier above.
Jansen
Jansen is a brutal guy to rank because he just has had so much trouble finding playing time. While he’s at the dish, he’s been incredible. Over the last two seasons, he has hit 26 homers in just 452 PAs, a ridiculous 17 PA/HR, and that’s on an 11% Brl% with a strong 19.5% K%.
I have trouble believing that he can maintain anything close to a 17 PA/HR, but it’s hard to doubt that the guy has some real power.
The good news is that he seems to truly be the backup catcher now behind Kirk since they shipped off Moreno to Arizona. Projections have him for 21 bombs in 425 PAs with a .236 AVG and 63 RBI. Plenty of upside given what we’ve seen from him, but he’s pretty volatile in my view.
d’Arnaud
Talked about the playing time split there with Murphy. That pretty much keeps me off of d’Arnaud since he’s more of just a “decent” hitter than a “good” one - so do you really want a “decent” hitter that isn’t even playing half the time?
But d’Arnaud is certainly better than the guys in the tiers below that will play about the same and aren’t even decent hitters…
Moreno
He’s a guy I’d like to take a couple of stabs at since he’s still pretty cheap and will get some elevated opportunity with the new team.
He’s hard to project since we haven’t seen a ton from him. He hit .319/.356/.377 in the Majors last year with just one homer in 73 PAs. That’s not what you want to see, and he hit only 3 homers in 267 minor-league PAs. Maybe he doesn’t have much power, but the guy hasn’t even turned 23 yet so there’s plenty of time.
If I’m “punting” catcher, Moreno is probably a guy I grab - but he’s not a high-priority target for me.
Tier 6
Keibert Ruiz
Jonah Heim
Logan O’Hoppe
Yasmani Grandal
Christian Vazquez
Elias Diaz
And now we’re really losing something here. We’re going to be quick with these last few tiers.
Ruiz
Good contact ability, hits a bunch of line drives, and will hit in the heart of the order. He’s also young enough to add pop - so there’s no reason to really, really dislike Ruiz. I think it’s okay in a “punt catcher” situation - cause at least you’ll get some base knocks and a few RBI even in that bad Nationals lineup - it’s nice to have a guy hitting #3 or #4 no matter what team they’re on.
Heim
I don’t really see that he does anything all that well. He hit .227 last year with a 6.9% Brl%, but a good 19% K%. Maybe he can hit for a good batting average and sort of luck into 15-20 homers again, but it seems the 16 he hit last year was an overperformance.
The projections say 14 homers and a .229 batting average - which isn’t very hard to replace throughout the season.
O’Hoppe
He hit 26 homers in 447 PAs in AA last year and then got a brief stint in the Majors where he saw 16 PAs.
Skipping AAA makes all of this very tough to project, I have almost no good data to use on him. He was a top prospect, so that’s a good sign. I think there’s a decent shot he doesn’t make the team out of camp - which would make him not worth a roster spot IMO.
Grandal
I’m betting on a bounce-back from what he did last year where he hit just eight homers in 427 PA. He will almost surely not get back to what he did in 2021, which was awesome - but the good news is that he’s priced a lot closer to his 2022 production than his 2021. I’ve taken him as my 2nd catcher a few times because he’s really like the last guy that we can expect playing time and some homers from - so he’s kind of the emergency option in that kind of league.
Vazquez
A batting average guy, but you have to wonder how much he’ll play with the new team, although it was a good sign that the Twins let Gary Sanchez go. Vazquez has basically no upside - but he’ll play more than half the time so that’ll work.
Diaz
He’s too cheap IMO so I like him for very deep leagues just to get those Coors starts. He’s had some runs where he’s hit really, really well - and right now he’s the #1 catcher on the Rockies’ depth chart.
Tier 7
Eric Haase
Bo Naylor
Christian Bethancourt
Nick Fortes
Joey Bart
These are all guys with very questionable playing time and some kind of hole in their game. I don’t think I’m even going to get into the breakdowns of each individual! I like Bethancourt okay with his 11.7% Brl% and 24% K% over the last two seasons - but I can’t say for sure how the Rays will use him.
The Others
Endy Rodriguez
Francisco Alvarez
If you’re buying a lottery ticket a catcher, these are the two guys.
Rodriguez
The Austin Hedges signing for the Pirates put a dagger in Endy’s beginning-of-the-season value, as clearly the Pirates are going for defense at the position at least to start things out. Endy did hit a ridiculous .323/.407/.590 in the minors last year and excelled in AAA as well (.455/.435/.773 in just 23 PA). You would think he would hit his way into the Majors at some point, but it probably won’t happen until May or June. You’re not drafting him in standard leagues, but he’s a decent stash in super deep leagues and someone to add when he gets called up.
Alvarez
There are plenty of players blocking Alvarez, and right now he doesn’t even have catcher eligibility on NFBC - so that really sucks. Even if he would make the team out of camp, it would take him a while to get the 10 starts behind the plate to get the eligibility, and he’s not nearly as exciting as a UTIL player as compared to a catcher player. But if you’re on a site where he’s already a catcher, I would draft him very late for sure just in case he makes the Mets team out of camp and becomes a close to everyday player. The guy can certainly hit the ball (.260/.374/.511, 27 HR in 495 minor league PA last year), and he’s one of the game’s top prospects mostly for his hitting ability - so the upside is there.
Final Ranks
Realmuto (T1)
Smith (T2)
Varsho (T2)
Perez (T2)
Rutschman (T3)
Contreras (STL) (T3)
Kirk (T3)
Melendez (T4)
Contreras (MIL) (T4)
Murphy (T4)
Stephenson (T4)
Raleigh (T5)
Jansen (T5)
d’Arnaud (T5)
Moreno (T5)
Ruiz (T6)
Heim (T6)
O’Hoppe (T6)
Grandal (T6)
Vazquez (T6)
Diaz (T6)
Bethancourt (T7)
Alvarez (T7)
Naylor (T7)
Haase (T7)
Rodriguez (T7)
Bart (T7)
Fortes (T7)