Fantasy Baseball Shuffle Up: The Salvador Perez problem at catcher
Starting pitchers are the running backs of fantasy baseball. Which I suppose means catchers are the tight ends. Catcher isn’t the sexiest position, that’s for sure.
But it’s a position. And we want to get them all right. So let’s see about those draft values, shall we?
The Shuffle Up series is a collection of theoretical offers if I were entering a Salary Cap (or Auction) Draft today. The salaries are unscientific in nature and used as tools to show where the talent is clustered. Assume a 12-team mixer, a 5x5 scoring system, and players at the same salary are considered even.
We’ll work our way through all the different positions in the next few weeks. Today it’s the catchers. And one note about these guys — even as some of them qualify at non-catcher spots, I will not Shuffle them anywhere but here. If you roster Daulton Varsho, it’s surely going to be at catcher, not in the outfield.
The Big Tickets
$22 Salvador Perez
$20 J.T. Realmuto
$18 Will Smith
$16 Yasmani Grandal
$15 Daulton Varsho
So, we have to have the Perez discussion.
He was obviously a fantasy god last year. This is where someone yells out “Regression!” and drops the mic, and then someone else says “Regression to what?”
I’m not wired to chase after career years, and I’m generally not wired to pay for the No. 1 catcher — or for that matter, the No. 1 tight end. I don’t like the track record for vanity catchers in recent years, and it’s not like the Royals lineup gives Perez any bonus juice . . .
While Perez’s ADP is about the same from NFBC to Yahoo, say this for Realmuto — he’s 26 picks cheaper in Yahoo than he is for NFBC players. Mind you, NFBC generally asks for two catchers, Yahoo standard only asks for one. Realmuto’s steals are unlikely to repeat, he’s merely batted .266 and 263 the last two years, and his career slugging is .453. If I’m in a room where no one wants to take catchers and the salary comes down, okay. I can’t go after him proactively . . .
Most seasons we have one tantalizing “He’s not really a catcher” catcher, the cheat code, the hack, the work-around. This year it could be the aforementioned Varsho, who might be an everyday outfielder in Arizona. Heck, Roster Resource has him slotted third, for whatever early-March speculation means to you. There’s also the matter of the .246/.315/.437 slash that Varsho had last year — all the playing time in the world won’t matter much if he doesn’t get a little better. But so few catcher-eligibles have a puncher’s chance at 500-plus at-bats, and Varsho in a perfect world could play 150 or more games. The sirens are singing . . .
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Grandal has the J.D. Drew problem; he never saw a center-cut fastball he didn’t want to pass on. Seriously, this guy would be better served to cut his walk rate by a third, bump up the strikeouts, and take his hacks. Don’t make it too easy for the pitchers. Grandal’s a reasonable ADP ticket around 137 and the White Sox lineup is exciting, but I’ll probably wait a little longer and shop in the next tier.
Legitimate Building Blocks
$13 Keibert Ruiz
$12 Travis d'Arnaud
$11 Mitch Garver
$11 Christian Vazquez
$10 Tyler Stephenson
$10 Gary Sanchez
$9 Sean Murphy
$9 Carson Kelly
$9 Adley Rutschman
$8 Mike Zunino
$8 Omar Narvaez
$7 Elias Diaz
With every Washington hitter, the question is “How close is he to Soto?” Ruiz at the moment looks to be three slots lower, which means he doesn’t get a boost. Bump him a buck for every slot he potentially gets closer to Soto . . . Vazquez is a volume play and a neighborhood play, a buoyancy play, riding along with the favorable Boston park and lineup . . .
Zunino’s power looks appealing and so many catchers hit for a poor average, you might think “Who cares about batting average?” I can sign off on that to a point, but I’d posit Sanchez has more bankable power than Zunino and also more batting-average upside. The Yankees will live with Sanchez as a poor defender and/or give him some DH time. With Sanchez carrying a cheap ADP of 208, he’s one of my early targets . . . Narvaez strikes me as the discount Vazquez, a reliable slash line and four starts a week on a solid Milwaukee club. It’s not sexy, but sometimes par is a good score.
Talk them up, talk them down
$6 James McCann
$5 Yadier Molina
$4 Austin Nola
$3 Danny Jansen
$3 Joey Bart
$3 Max Stassi
$3 Tucker Barnhart
$2 Jorge Alfaro
$2 Yan Gomes
The Padres want to run and so does Alfaro, so if he ever looks like even a 50-50 starter in San Diego, I’ll bump him up . . . Bart slugged .512 in the minors and regularly shows up on the scouting tables, making him a reasonable guy to try in the late rounds. And the San Francisco park hasn’t been death valley the last two years . . .
[Fantasy Baseball Draft Rankings: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP]
Molina is still providing value by outguessing pitchers and getting the volume in. His OPS+ has been under league average for three years running. He’s still one of my favorite players and I think he’s built a legitimate Hall of Fame case, but there’s no upside to his profile. You’re hoping to make your ADP investment back. Betting on 39-year-old catchers is generally a losing racket.
Bargain Bin
$1 Jacob Stallings
$1 Francisco Mejia
$1 Jonah Heim
$1 Eric Haase
$1 Victor Caratini
$1 Pedro Severino
$1 Ryan Jeffers
