Finding the Cliffs: Catcher and First Base
I look into early draft ADP to find the "cliffs" at each position
The links:
NOTICE: THIS IS NOT MY OFFICIAL 2025 CATCHER PREVIEW POST! I would never want to do the catcher preview such a disservice as to release it in early January. The sanctity of #CatcherWeek must be preserved. We will have the full catcher preview out in early February.
What we’re doing here is finding the point in the draft where the expectations at each position really dry up. One great way to get ahead in the draft is to be successful at grabbing a bunch of the “last viable” players. Get your studs early on, of course, but building out the bottom of your starting lineup and bench with a bunch of these guys with lower ADP who are still in the same ballpark as the guys above them will give your team a lot of solidity.
This is most useful for the draft and hold leagues where you’re not able to do any in-season management, but it’s good practice nonetheless.
It will be pretty brief for each position. I’m not going to do any player analysis; we’re just taking a high-level look at the draft once again. I’m using NFBC Draft Champions ADP.
Catcher
Catcher is a unique position. In NFBC leagues, you have to start two of them. That means, in a 15-team league like Draft Champions, you’ll have as many starting catchers in your fantasy league as there are in real life. Many teams split playing time pretty evenly, so there are a lot more than 30 guys who will play in a given week, but we really don’t want to be relying on a part-time player in our fantasy lineups if we’re trying to win leagues.
I don’t think it’s the most important thing in the world to get two stud catchers in these leagues, but if you can find your way into two catchers giving you 1,000+ plate appearances of decent production, that does put you ahead of a lot of the other teams who will inevitably fall into disaster as the position.
What I’ve done is ordered the players by ADP, and then I drew my edits and put bold lines where I think the two cliffs are.
I’m not here to rank the players; I’m focused on chunks again. But I went ahead and made these three annotations:
I like Cal Raleigh above catcher five in 5x5. I’d rather lock in that power than take Adley Rutschman (a better real-life player than fantasy) or take a risk on another productive year for Salvador Perez.
I don’t know why Ivan Herrera isn’t going higher. I will have him as a top-15 catcher without question.
With the Travis d’Arnaud and Jorge Soler acquisitions in Anaheim, I find it tough to pay that price for Logan O’Hoppe. He could be on his way to just 120 or games played, and that sends him to the bottom of this first chunk.
I’ve also put a strikethrough on two names (Joey Bart and Jonah Heim), because I think there’s a real chance both of those guys lose their roles as the starter. I wouldn’t pay that price for either guy.
The first cliff, for me, is after that top 12. Once those dozen names are gone, you’re taking some big risk. I wrestled with including Austin Wells, but I’m still not convinced he can be the primary catcher for the whole season as a guy with 480 career PAs and a .229 batting average. I’m prioritizing getting one of those first dozen names.
The second cliff I’ve drawn is after Hunter Goodman, and that puts 25 catchers before this final cliff. Between those two red lines, you have guys that either don’t hit well or are around half-time players (or both). So you’re taking on risk in one form or another. The guys in that range that you feel good about getting 450+ PAs from, you can be pretty certain they aren’t going to do much with the bat (Ruiz, Moreno, Kirk, Bailey). The guys that can hit in some fashion (Wells, Murphy, Jeffers, Herrera, Goodman) will have to hit to keep the job and are probably guys that are only playing 60-70% of the time, no matter what.
So there you have it for the catcher position. My general rule is that I want two guys in the top 25. I don’t find myself taking two guys in that first chunk very often, but I don’t think it’s a bad idea. My favorite trio to take is probably Langeliers + Herrera + Goodman/Jansen.
The “life preservers” I’ll take as my first or second bench options are Kyle Higashioka, Adrian Del Castillo, Edgar Quero, and Drake Baldwin.
First Base
No annotations here, but I have plenty of issues with how drafters have ordered this ADP. We’ll get into that during the first base preview, and you’ll see it once I release my full rankings in a few weeks.
I have a pretty big first grouping here. There are 13 first basemen I’d be comfortable with as my starter. That doesn’t mean they’re all the same or that the Jake Burger at #122 is just as good of a pick as Matt Olson at #35 or anything like that - but that’s where I’d draw the line. I know there are some very pro-Luis Arraez people out there, but he’s just not a good fantasy player in 5x5 roto, and he’s over-drafted every year. I don’t want him as my starting 1B (unless it’s a very strategic pick where I pair him with some batting average craters like a team that has both Cal Raleigh and Kyle Schwarber on it).
I’m sure a few of the guys in that second grouping will prove to be top-ten options at the position, but I’d rather not have to bet on that.
I’m putting the second cliff down after Jake Cronenworth at pick 289. Most of the guys after that point have a loose hold on playing time or are simply not good hitters for fantasy purposes.
I am looking to wait a bit at the first base position and then draft something like Christian Walker + Ryan Mountcastle + Andrew Vaughn to round out my first base options. The later guys I’ll take fliers on would be Nolan Schanuel, Tyler Soderstrom, Luke Raley, Spencer Horwitz, Jonathan Aranda, Carlos Santana, and Deyvison De Los Santos.