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| Thursday, October 3, 2024 |
| Over the next month or so, I'm going to be going through every position with an eye both on what happened in 2024 and what we can expect it to look like in 2025, and we are starting, as these things always do with catcher. |
| Best to get the worst position out of the way early, right? |
| Every year, we try to convince ourselves that this is the year catcher won't stink. And we're almost always wrong for pretty predictable reasons. Catcher is the toughest position on the field to play, and young catchers tend to develop more slowly than players at other positions; maybe an eventual change to an automatic ball-strike system will minimize the impact of catcher framing in a way that lowers the barriers to entry at the position, but right now, the status quo reigns for at least one more season. That is why you're probably better off betting against any given hyped young catcher actually hitting the ground running as a difference-maker. |
| And the position gets hit from the other end, too, as veterans tend to age significantly worse behind the plate than at other positions. In 2024, only three players over the age of 30 got even 400 plate appearances while qualifying for the position; Willson Contreras, Martin Maldonado, Elias Diaz, Yan Gomes, and Yasmani Grandal all fell short after doing it in 2023. When the end comes here, it tends to come pretty quickly. |
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| Late peaks and short peaks – "The food was terrible, and the portions were so small!" |
| In a lot of ways, catcher is the tight end position of Fantasy Baseball. If you have someone at catcher who you might even consider using at a different position, you have one of the biggest edges possible in the game because there are only about five of those. |
| Maybe 2024 will be the year things are different. We've got a handful of interesting young guys in the majors who could take a step forward and a handful of really interesting, even younger guys in the high minors who could very well make the leap to the majors and help the position take a step forward in 2025. Of course, we also have Will Smith set to join Realmuto and Salvador Perez on the wrong side of 30 by Opening Day, so any further slippage from that trio could make the position look even worse pretty quickly. |
| So, yeah, smart money is on catcher, remaining mostly a wasteland for Fantasy. If you have one of the top 8-10 guys at the position, you're in a pretty good spot; with basically everyone else, you should always be open to upgrading. That's the way you have to play the position; you either have a difference maker, or you should be flexible enough with how you approach it to constantly be looking out for any potential difference maker. |
| In the rest of today's newsletter, you'll find my quick recap of what happened in 2024, plus what you need to know about the position heading into the offseason, including the top free agents, trade candidates, and some 2025 rookies to get to know. And to see more about how we're approaching the position for 2025, check out my first round of rankings here, as well as Scott White's early rankings here. |
| Now, let's get this out of the way, shall we? |
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| 2024 Catcher Review |
| That's how low the bar is at catcher. Fry also qualified at first base, where he was No. 36. If you want to swap in J.T. Realmuto and his .266-50-14-47-2 line, that would certainly reflect how Fantasy players actually approached the season, though it wouldn't make catcher look much better besides a better name brand attached to it. |
| Biggest Breakout from 2024 |
| Shea Langeliers, OAK |
| Langeliers' 2024 wasn't fundamentally all that different from his 2023, but it's likely to lead to at least a 10-spot improvement on his C22 ADP from last season. Long story short, he just got a bit better at everything. He cut his strikeout rate a bit and walked a bit more than 2023, and he tapped into his solid power a bit more consistently as a result. It still feels like a pretty fragile skill set thanks to his strikeout issues, but Langeliers was a legitimately good hitter in 2024, and at catcher, that's hard to find. And here's the kicker: Langeliers actually underperformed his xwOBA by 17 points in 2024. There's still some meat left on these bones, especially if the A's new permanently-temporary home park in Sacramento plays more hitter-friendly than Oakland did. |
| Biggest Bust from 2024 |
| Adley Rutschman, BAL |
| Rutschman was by no means bad in 2024. But given that he went off the board about two rounds before any other catcher, you needed him to be a lot better than "not bad" to justify picking him, and he certainly didn't clear that bar. And, in fact, for much of the season, he actually was just bad, hitting .207/.282/.303 in the second half of the season. A foul tip off his right hand on June 27 lines up almost perfectly with when Rutschman's season took a wrong turn, so I think betting on a bounceback makes a lot of sense here. While the injury does highlight the risk of spending big on any catcher – they call 'em the "tools of ignorance" for a reason, folks! – I'll take any discount you're offering on the 26-year-old, all-world catcher coming off a down year with a good excuse. |
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| Biggest rankings movers from 2024 to 2025 |
| Up: Shea Langeliers, OAK; Tyler Stephenson, CIN; Austin Wells, NYY |
| Here are Stephenson's OPS over the past four seasons: .797, .854, .695, .782. It sure seems like 2023 was the outlier here. He doesn't do anything exceptionally well, necessarily, but Stephenson makes enough contact and does enough with it to be a very solid No. 1 catcher. Though, as Scott White notes, "You can think of Stephenson as sort of the minimum acceptable starter in a one-catcher league." He certainly isn't special. |
| At another position, Wells' struggles against lefties might be disqualifying. At catcher? Well, he's gonna get a few days off per week anyway, so they might as well come against pitchers he can't hit anyway, right? Wells had a solid rookie season, but with a .341 xwOBA compared to his .315 actual wOBA, I think there's still a lot of room to grow into a 20-homer threat in Yankee Stadium. |
| Down: Sean Murphy, ATL; Jonah Heim, TEX |
| An Opening Day oblique injury helps explain Murphy's rotten 2024, but the fact that it came on the heels of a pretty rotten second half in 2023 doesn't make it easy to give Murphy the benefit of the doubt. I don't think we've seen the last of him as an impact bat, and he'll be a priority target as a No. 2 catcher for me. |
| I do think we've seen the last of Heim as anything more than a fringe Fantasy option. He had a huge first half in 2023, which looks like a total outlier for his career at this point. The Rangers should be actively looking for an upgrade after Heim was a below-replacement-level player in 2024. |
| Offseason preview |
| Who needs an upgrade most? |
| I mean … almost everyone? Among contenders or would-be contenders, the Red Sox, Rays, Cubs, Rangers, and Padres could probably most use an upgrade. For various reasons, at least a few of them seem unlikely to take big swings, and there aren't exactly many big swings out there, as you'll see. |
| Top impending free agents |
| Travis d'Arnaud, ATLDanny Jansen, BOS Carson Kelly, TEXKyle Higashioka, SD |
| Yeah, it's not a great crop. Even by the relatively low bar for catchers, d'Arnaud is probably the only one you wouldn't cringe at seeing in the starting lineup for your favorite team. Don't expect salvation to come from free agency. |
| Trade candidates |
| Willson Contreras, STLMitch Garver, SEA |
| The former might be a long shot, but it's worth considering; the fit in St. Louis has felt awkward from almost day one, and between Ivan Herrera and Pedro Pages, the Cardinals have a decent young tandem that might be able to replace Contreras ably. They more or less did when Contreras missed time this season. He's still a difference-making bat and would provide a significant upgrade for probably two-thirds of the league, but it's not clear how many of those teams would be interested in the privilege of paying a catcher $18 million per year for his age-33 through 35 seasons. |
| Garver is an interesting name, with a contract that effectively expires after this season (he is owed $12.5 million for 2025 and has a $1 million buyout for 2026). He's coming off an abysmal first season in Seattle, hitting .172/.286/.341, and the bet you'd have to make is that he just couldn't see the ball well in Seattle, something other hitters have complained about ; the fact that Garver actually hit worse on the road this season is an argument against this hypothesis, admittedly. Garver is more of a DH at this point, and that's certainly a complication. But if some team thinks he can be a part-time catcher and has something left in the bat, it's an interesting buy low. |
| Top 2025 rookies to know |
| Samuel Basallo, BALKyle Teel, BOSEthan Salas, SDDalton Rushing , LAD Agustin Ramirez, MIAAdrian Del Castillo, ARI |
| Ramirez might have the best chance at having a primary job on Opening Day after hitting .262/.358/.447 in 39 games with the Marlins Triple-A affiliate after being traded there. He hit 25 homers with a manageable strikeout rate as a 22-year-old across Double-A and Triple-A last season and even brings some athleticism to the table. He isn't the best prospect of this group, but his path to an everyday role is probably clearest. |
| Teel is probably second in that group, having reached Triple-A himself as a 22-year-old. He didn't light the world on fire, and the Red Sox clearly value Connor Wong, going so far as to give him starts at DH, 1B, and 2B in 2024. and I'd be surprised if they called Teel up for Opening Day. But if Teel hits well early and Wong struggles, it probably won't take long before he gets a chance. |
| I'm also throwing Del Castillo in here. He probably won't make any top-100 lists, but he hit .312/.399/.603 in Triple-A and then more than held his own in the majors, posting an .893 OPS in 25 games with the Diamondbacks. I think he probably belongs in a timeshare with Gabriel Moreno next season, and might even be worth giving a few looks at DH. |
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