2011 Positional Review – Catchers
October 13th, 2011 | by Ray Flowers |
You remember back to March when I gave away all my position player rankings for free, right? For those of you who want to revisit my greatest hits, here’s where you would go to get all my rankings for hitters – 2011: BBGuys Hitter Capsules.
I’m nothing if not accountable, so I’ll review my top-10 predictions at each position as well as point out my biggest “hit” outside of the top-10 and my biggest “bust.” This should be fun.
Today, I’ll start with the catchers position.
2011 CATCHER Top-10
1 Joe Mauer
2 Victor Martinez
3 Brian McCann
4 Buster Posey
5 Geovany Soto
6 Carlos Santana
7 Mike Napoli
8 Matt Wieters
9 Miguel Montero
10 Kurt Suzuki
Mauer was injured from start to finish and he ended up with a .287 average, three homers and 30 RBI in 296 at-bats. It was a dismal season for a man who owns a career .323 average and a Hall of Fame bat.
V-Mart showed an astonishing lack of power with only 12 home runs, but he knocked in 103 runs while hitting .330 in what was a rather remarkable season.
McCann failed to hit .275 for the second straight year (he hit .270), and he also posted a 6-year low in RBI with 71. Still, he hit 24 homers and was the only catchers in the NL to hit more than 18 homers.
Posey‘s year ended after just 162 at-bats when he was plowed over at the plate trashing his leg. He is back to catching bullpens already and the Giants hope he will be at 100 percent by spring training next year.
Soto would have been my bust of the year if not for the failings of Mauer. Soto did hit 17 homers and knock in 54 runs, but he batted .228 while his OBP of .310 was .038 points below his career mark.
Santana was the best catcher in the AL not named Martinez. Santana, in his first full season in the bigs, was the only catcher in baseball with 20 homers, 70 RBI and 70 runs scores (27, 79 and 84). The 84 runs led the position.
Napoli was a superstar this season, and I wrote all about his efforts in Player Profile: Mike Napoli.
Wieters was one of three catcher eligible players to hit 20 homers with 65 RBI and 70 runs scored (he had 22, 68 and 72). Matt killed it in the second half hitting 14 homers with a .840 OPS in 61 games.
Montero was a rock all year for the D’backs. After hitting .294-16-59 in 2009, he was injured in 2010 and limited to 85 games. He bounced back this year with the best effort of his career (.282-18-86-65).
Suzuki was my #10 catcher because of one main reason – consistency. He did appear in 130 games for a fourth straight year, and his total of 14 homers was an exact match for his 2009-10 average, but his average fell to a career worst (.237) while he lost 37 RBI from 2010 (71) and 44 from 2009 (88).
Hit: Chris Iannetta #14
The Rockies have still never given him 350 at-bats in a season, but with 345 this year he blasted 14 homers, knocked in 55 runs and scored 51 times. Only 11 catchers in the game went 14-50-50, and only three went 14-50-50 with a .370 OBP (the others were Alex Avila and Napoli). He may have hit only .238, but he walked 70 times leading to that impressive .370 OBP.
Bust: Joe Mauer #1
What more needs to be said? He stunk.
By Ray Flowers
Tags: Briuan McCann, Buster Posey, Carlos Santana, Chris Iannetta, Geovany Soto, Joe Mauer, Kurt Suzuki, Matt Wieters, Miguel Montero, Mike Napoli, Top-10 Catchers, Victor Martinez
By Paul on Oct 13, 2011
Hi Ray,
I was the one who posted my catcher ranking back in November…. http://baseballguys.com/2010/11/12/top-10-c-for-2011/
Mine was based on points leagues rather then 5×5, either way they weren’t perfect.
My number one Brian McCann had a decent slash line for a catcher, 270/351/465, but decent only ranked him #7 in my league.
My number two was V-Mart, my strategy was he was going to get a full season of AB’s playing DH, he could pile daily points. He did finish number two in my points league.
At 3 & 4 I had Soto & Mauer…Yikes
The question is at what position will we be ranking Mauer in the near future?
Had Napoli in the middle, didn’t think he would get enough playing time to contribute. Well, he didn’t but he didn’t need it ranking third in my points league.
Had Suzuki next because of consistency, which he was once again. Career line: 258/317/388; 2011: 237/300/384. There was some surprised guest in the top 10 that pushed Kurt down the list.
I put the young kids next starting with Posey, wasn’t a big fan to start with. Will have to wait another year to see what he can do in a full season.
Weiters- He may have finally figured it out, if he did no question he be a top 3 next year.
Santana- Loved him when he was in the LAD farm. Even with the low BA (239) he was number one in my points league because of the power, 35- doubles, 2- triples, 27 HR’s.
Had Iannetta and Ruiz at my bottom, I like Iannetta’s potential but I think there are bigger problems between him and the Rockies.
He did finish in my points league in 9th.
I only picked Ruiz because he was on a good team. When your in a points league, a Good Team = Good Points.
Who was missed?
Alex Avila- Ranked 4th in my points league. I made the biggest mistake I see owners make, forgetting about players based on the previous bad year.
Miguel Montero- Ranked 5th in my points league.
Bottom line is he finally stayed healthy, he had his most AB’s in a season (493).
Yadier Molina- Ranked 8th in my points league. Only second time in his career he hit over .300 but where did the power come from? 32 doubles & 14 HR’s, Props! But lets see a repeat!
Russell Martin- Ranked 10th in my points league. I think he was a FA still last November. But considering catchers in my league that was ranked 9th to 16th were only separated by only 22 points, this still doesn’t say much for Martin. Sorry Yankee fans!
In conclusion you can’t predict sports, that why they play the game!
Paul
By Ray Flowers on Oct 14, 2011
Paul – The Twins keep saying Mauer will catch, so there’s that. I said it at the time, and I still believe it. They totally blew it when they signed him to that massive deal. A DH/1B who hits .330-15-85 is solid, but not worth $20 million a year.
Avila had never hit like this. I don’t know how you could get mad at yourself for not ranking him higher.
Thanks for the update, and good luck next year.
By Paul on Oct 16, 2011
I first noticed Aliva in 2009 in his late call up, hitting 5 HR in 61 AB’s. Yes, small sample size but you have to take notice and dig into him.
In 2008 A- ball, Avila showed a good LD rate 21% but not great power (7%),maybe decent for a Catcher.
In 2009 AA- ball, Avila showed power 36 XBH in 329 AB’s but LD% decreased, 13%. But with a good BB/K rate 52/77, was this a case of “bad” luck.
After the 2009 display in the majors, he was drafted across the board in about every league only to end back on the waiver wire.
But what wasn’t looked at was his career low BABIP of .278 while having a 21-LD%, his power diminished again (6%).
We seen what he did in 2011 but to break him down for 2012:
Avila showed league average in LD% over the past two seasons 20-21%, In 2010 he showed a career low in BABIP .286 & a career high in BABIP in 2011 .376, I wouldn’t expect the .290 BA he hit in 2011 but somewhere around .260.
But with the continued increasing BB/K over the past two years that BA could rise.
I think the power is real and should hit 20+ HR.
A .260 with 20 HR may not sound great but considering only 3 catchers a year over the past two years, hit 20+ HR with at least a .260 BA, I say that be good enough to be in a top 10.
In conclusion I could have easily placed Aliva at number 10 over Ruiz, that you can agree to!
Mauer- That contract was signed before the injuries had started (unlike Payton Manning). Do you want to ruin your 20 million dollar man.
I agree, the numbers he posts are not 1b worthy, but what about RF? I think having that ability to limit base runners makes up for the HR difference. I know from a fantasy perspective that don’t matter, however I don’t think Mauer or the Twins care about that!
Do you know how many innings a SP has to go to qualify for a win? And how is it decided who gets the win?
Holland last night went 4.2, left with a 9-4 lead & Ogando got the win pitching only 2 innings.
I always thought if the starter went less then 5 innings and any pitcher who qualified for the win, the win went to the pitcher with the most innings pitched in the game.
Paul
By Ray Flowers on Oct 16, 2011
Paul – No way on earth that Avila can repeat that BABIP. Your .260 expectation makes sense.
As for wins, here is the official ruling: http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/official_info/official_rules/official_scorer_10.jsp
A starting pitcher has to go five innings to qualify for a win. After that, it’s the game situation that dictates the win.
By Mike on Oct 17, 2011
Ray – Love your site and your work. You are rare in that you support your opinions with real analysis (that always makes sense to me).
I have a fantasy baseball keeper question for you. The keeper rules for our shallow (8 teams) but competitive league are: (1) only two keepers per team; (b) can’t keep anyone drafted in first four rounds (prevents most of the stars from being locked-up before the draft); (c) keepers cost draft picks equivalent to round in which they were drafted; (d) players that initially were undrafted cost a 22nd round pick (equivalent to last round of our draft); and (e) if both desired keepers were drafted in same round, the cost would be that round’s pick and the earlier round’s pick (for instance, two keepers drafted in the 5th round would cost next year’s 4th and 5th round draft picks).
So … the potential keepers I’m trying to choose between and their cost are as follows: Jose Bautista (5th round), Michael Bourn (22nd round), (c) Eric Hosmer (22nd round), (d) Jared Weaver (7th round), Stephen Strasburg (22nd round), Mike Napoli (18th round), and Clayton Kershaw (5th round).
Bautista seems like great value for a 5th round pick (as the top 3B and one of the top OF), although his drop-off in the second half concerns me, and I think his average was inflated for him (Longoria is my top 3B going into 2012). I also am skeptical about Bourn maintaining last year’s average, although I would expect excellent runs and steals at the top of the Braves order and the cost is low. I think Hosmer will be very good next year, but he is not yet a top tier 1B, although he could make a good utility batter at a low cost (we have the 8 hitting positions and 2 utility batters in our starting lineups). Jered Weaver for a 7th round pick seems like pretty good value, although I like Kershaw better, albeit at a higher cost (Kershaw is my #1 SP going into 2012). Napoli was a huge mid-year pickup for me, but is he really going to hit over .300 next year, and should I use one of only two keepers on a catcher that does not play everyday? Finally, I think Stasburg is going to be special, and would come at a very low cost, although he’ll probably be shutdown around the time fantasy play-offs begin.
While I am tempted to keep Bautista and Kershaw, I hate giving up my 4th and 5th round picks. Although I know pitching is deep, part of me wants to grab Kershaw and Stasburg (which would cost 5th and 22nd picks) and then use most of my top 10 picks (and all of my top 4 picks) on hitting knowing that I have two strong starters “in the bank.” On the other hand, I could roll with Bourn and Hosmer and have two pretty decent hitters giving up only my 21st and 22nd round picks (or Bautista and either Bourn or Hosmer).
Can I please get your take on these players in comparison to their relative cost? If you were giving up a 5th round pick, do you like Bautista or Kershaw better? If you were giving up a 22nd round pick, how would you rank Hosmer, Bourn and Strasburg? Sorry for the length of this question; any help is much appreciated.
By Ray Flowers on Oct 17, 2011
Mike – I love all the explanation, thanks for all of that. Glad you appreciate my work as well.
You HAVE to keep Bourn. People constantly underestimate the value of guys who steal bases, and Bourn is as good as it get there. He was a top-30 performer this year, and that’s a 3rd straight year of him being a top-50 performer. Even if he gives back .025 batting average points, as long as he runs he’s a top-50 guy, so he’s a must keep at 22nd round.
Hosmer, as you said, is great value, but I dont think he’ll be an elite 1B in 2012.
Bautista had a down 2nd half, but that was expected, as I continually wrote
Still, great season and tremendous value.
Agreed, can’t keep Napoli.
I like Kershaw over Weaver, though the two round diff. closes the gap considerably. But Strasburg in the 22nd? Tough not to keep him. Great arm, and so much trade value if you wanted to deal him.
I’d keep Bourn and Bautista. PItching is so up and down, if I can get a speed demon, and the power bat, a great 1-2 combo, I think you’d be set up well. If I was gonna keep a hurler, 22nd round for Strasburg is just amazing value, even if he pitches 160 innings (another reason WHY fantasy baseball should be 1-162 games, and not this head to head junk).
By Mike on Oct 18, 2011
Ray – Many thanks for the guidance. I think I’ve grown too attached to certain players, so it is extremely helpful to get a dispassionate opinion. I’ll plan to keep Bourn and Bautista, although letting Strasburg and Kershaw go will be very tough. Still, pitching is deep and, as you say, very up-and-down. Although I love Kershaw, I think my brain agrees with you that Bautista probably is the better keeper (especially given that 3B still is rather shallow). Keeping Bourn over Strasburg is a tough one, but I understand what you mean about people underestimating great base stealers. Bourn was one of the top overall players for the season on the ESPN Player Rater, and to keep him at the cost of only a 22nd round pick certainly qualifies as very good value.
Keep up the great work. By the way, I love the way you are revisiting your 2011 projections – you rarely see that from others in the business. Many people tout their great predictions and gloss over the ones that miss. Your approach is more honest and only increases your credibility.
By Ray Flowers on Oct 18, 2011
Mike- Thanks for that. Look, we all make predictions, and in my case – and most other experts – we’re predicting 500 players. You’re bound to screw up a a whole bunch of them, it’s just the way it is. Instead of acting like it never happened, why not try to learn from it to make better calls moving forward, right? Hell, if I’m 75% right, and that would be a huge number given the last decade or so of predictions, I’d still be making 125 wrong calls. Just the way it is.
Bautista at 3b/of is the key for me too. All he has to do is replicate his efforts this season in the counting categories to be a top-50 guy — with relative ease. Toss in multi position elig. and that’s the reason why I suggested keeping him.