Rest of Season Catcher Rankings
I re-rank my top 25 catchers for the second half of the 2024 fantasy baseball season.
Other Positions
I sent this out on Twitter yesterday, but here I am to write the whole thing up officially.
I’ve also listened to many of the comments from the angry fill in the blank with MLB team name fans, and I’ve re-considered a few things.
The one thing that I don’t always clarify on Twitter (which I should) is that these are rotisserie fantasy baseball rankings. Since you’re reading it here, you already know that, but a lot of the criticism was about how good a guy’s defense is. I talk at a lot more people on Twitter than I do here, so people don’t know me when I’m sending out those sweet, sweet tweets that have made me extremely popular and famous among .000001% of the world population. They don’t know me enough to know that defense is stupid, and I don’t care about it.
So let’s rock out these rest of season catcher ranks.
Tier One
Adley Rutschman
William Contreras
Rutschman and Contreras have effectively tied so far. My player rater has them one cent apart. The reason I give Rutschman the nod is the recent slump for Contreras. He did most of his damage in his first 200 PAs (.984 OPS first 200, .642 last 196), so that’s enough to use as a tie-breaker.
But those are the clear top two. Playing time is king here, and these two are a lap ahead of everybody else in playing time (30+ PAs ahead of the rest). they both are well above-average hitters while they’re at it.
Tier Two
Will Smith
Smith is possibly the best hitter of the bunch with his fantastic .274/.343/.500 slash line with 15 homers, but he’s about 60 PAs behind those two, and that holds him back. He’s clearly behind the top two but clearly ahead of the rest. I guess I didn’t even need to say that because you could figure that out by the fact that he’s in this tier all by himself!
Tier Three
Salvador Perez
Francisco Alvarez
Logan O’Hoppe
Three more legitimately good hitters here. Perez stands out a bit because of the playing time (he’s started every game but three and has played a bunch at first base and DH - so the playing time is locked in). But game-for-game, I’d take Alvarez and O’Hoppe over him.
Alvarez has a sweet .993 OPS over the last month and is hitting in the heart of the Mets lineup most days. O’Hoppe continues to impress with the bat with an .820 OPS and 14 homers on the year.
Tier Four
Cal Raleigh
Willson Contreras
Yainer Diaz
J.T. Realmuto
Raleigh is trying his best to get to his third-straight 30-homer season with 17 in the bag already. However, the strikeout rate is way up there, and that has killed his batting average (.225 xBA, .210 actual). Few catchers steal any bases, but it still hurts here. Raleigh is essentially a two-category player, so I have to move him down into tier four.
Willson Contreras missed a bunch of time with a wrist injury, but has been strong at the plate while on the field with a .918 OPS and 9 homers in 193 PAs. I don’t love the age, the team, or the 28% K%, but he’s still a no-doubt must-start catcher.
It’s been a really disappointing sophomore campaign from Yainer Diaz, but we can’t give up on him yet. He’s playing a lot (5th in PAs), and he’s barely striking out at all (14%). The problem is that he hasn’t lifted the ball much (52% GB%), and the plate discipline is still very bad (4% BB%). I think the second half will be better for Yainer. He has pop and gets a ton of balls in play.
Realmuto is only down here because he’s currently on the IL. It looks like he’ll be back before the calendar turns to August, but he wasn’t doing super well before the injury (.720 OPS, 27% K%, one steal), so there are a lot of question marks there.
Tier Five
Shea Langeliers
Mitch Garver
Ryan Jeffers
Three guys here that play a good amount and can hit homers but don’t do much else good for fantasy purposes. Garver is hitting just .176 with a 31% K%, that’s been a big disappointment, but he’s still managed a dozen homers.
Jeffers put together most of his production in a hot stretch from April to May, but the season line is still strong with a .801 OPS and 14 homers. The playing time has dropped off, however, with just 62 PAs in the last month.
Langeliers is a big drag on your batting average, and the team context prevents him from putting up too many counting stats, but he’s on his way to a 25+ homer season with 17 so far and a nice 16% Brl%, so that makes him a top-12 catcher in my book.
Tier Six
Sean Murphy
Ben Rice
This is the end of the line in terms of guys I would want to start in a one-catcher league. Murphy plays about 2 out of 3 games, taking 57 of the 87 PAs at catcher for the Braves over the last three weeks. He’s hitting well again (.945 OPS last three weeks), but we saw him go cold in the second half of last year, and the playing time probably isn’t going to increase as the Braves have their sights on the postseason.
Ben Rice is an unknown, but so far, he’s hitting like a tier-two catcher. I don’t think it’s wise at all to expect that to continue. However, I still have to rank him pretty aggressively, given what he’s shown us so far. Bonus points that he doesn’t actually have to get behind the dish (playing first base) and is hitting at the top of an excellent lineup right now. If he keeps hitting, he could be right at the top of the list in playing time at this position moving forward.
Tier Seven
Tyler Soderstrom
Tyler Stephenson
Patrick Bailey
Gabriel Moreno
Jonah Heim
Some redeeming qualities in this group, but mostly guys that will hurt your fantasy squad overall. Soderstrom is a first baseman. He hasn’t even made a start at catcher this year, so he gets bonus points there (more playing time, less injury risk). However, it’s a bad team and has had a somewhat mediocre performance so far, with a .748 OPS.
Stephenson hits in a good park and does not strike out much at all (13%), but he hits a lot of ground balls (50%) and doesn’t show much raw power (5% Brl%). So he’s not going to help you very much in anything.
People are really on my ass about Bailey, but I don’t know what to tell you; the guy has a .671 OPS with two homers since June began. The 3.8% Brl% and 38% hard-hit rate? Why do people like this dude, exactly? I guess he’s a spectacular defender or something, but again, we don’t care about that.
Heim kind of just does a little bit of everything and hits in a lineup that could be very good down the stretch if the big guys all get right at the same time. The RBI opportunities are nice, and the 11% Brl% since June 1st shows us that maybe he’ll hit some extra homers soon.
Tier Eight
Connor Wong
Elias Diaz
David Fry
Kyle Higashioka
These guys could all be higher on the list, so let’s take a look.
Wong: He had a very good first month (.948 OPS, 5 HR). That was completely out of nowhere and went away pretty quickly. Over the last month, he has a .736 OPS with just two homers and two steals. There’s not much going there for fantasy purposes, and given the projection on him, I don’t think he’s going to be anything but a big drag in fantasy the rest of the way.
Diaz: Decent batting average (.292), but just five homers all year and the Rockies don’t give him much opportunity for fantasy production.
Fry: He has a .902 OPS on the year now with eight homers and four steals, and has catcher eligibility on most sites. I just don’t buy it. The OPS is .624 over the last 94 PAs with no homers and no steals, and this guy has been a career minor leaguer. I think it was just a lucky stretch, and I don’t expect much in the second half.
Higashioka: He has 1,045 career PAs and a .667 career OPS. I don’t buy the .814 mark from this year at all.
Tier Eight
Miguel Amaya
Austin Wells
Keibert Ruiz
Carson Kelly
Korey Lee
Ben Rortvedt
Six more names to get us to 30 for the 15-team, two-catcher league psychos. Amaya and Wells are the guys with upside here, and they could move up the list in a hurry if they start swinging the bat better than they have.
That’s it, 30 catchers ranked for the next three months of baseball. I declare complete immunity from criticism for myself.
No Bo Naylor?