Collette Calls: The Ugliness of Catcher

People ask me how I handle the amount of travel that I have to do for my job, and the secret is podcasts. I have a number on my playlist and I listen to them at 1.5x speed on my noise-cancelling Bose earbuds (Love you, honey) and all of the problems of Gate Lice and oversized carry-on bags seemingly disappear.

One problem that is not disappearing is the lack of talent at catcher. Simply put, it is downright scary what is out there for 2017. This is not like fantasy football where the difference between the first and 15th kicker is a matter of a few points each week. This is so bad, I had to create a meme for it to get my point across:

There are four catchers in the top 100, 11 in the top 200 and 14 in the top 250. In a standard 12-team mixed league, there is enough for everyone to get at least once decent catcher. In a 15-team league, we are cutting it close, but in a single-league format, it could get ugly in a hurry. It got worse when everyone's favorite sleeper, Tom Murphy, went down with a forearm fracture.

I have not yet done an NL-Only draft, but here is how I have ended up at catcher in the drafts I have participated in:

15 team mixed draft: Evan Gattis (Pick 9.10) & Yan Gomes (Pick 23.10)
12 team mixed draft: Evan Gattis (Pick 10.4) & Austin Hedges (Pick 22.4)
12 team mixed draft (NFBC): Yan Gomes (Pick 22.3) & Austin Hedges (Pick 26.3)

In standard 12- and 15-team leagues, I've waited to take that second catcher and have ended up with two guys who are projected to do the following based on our projections:

If that is where you are, I'd like to focus on the other 15 and see which, if any, may be worth adding for one reason or another.

Cameron Rupp - Rupp is what you are looking for in a C2: power upside and hope he doesn't kill you in batting average. Last year, he hit .252 despite a very high strikeout rate and little plate discipline. The projections are not as kind to him this year and he has top prospect Jorge Alfaro breathing down his neck. There may be some more power there as we learned after the season that Rupp played through 2016 with an arm injury. Maybe there is 20 homers in his bat in 2017, or maybe he loses his job to the defensively superior and younger Alfaro by midseason.

Wilson Ramos - Ramos is a known quantity at the plate and if he were healthy, he would be a top-5 catcher this year. The problem is he is not, and he is unlikely to play in a game before Memorial Day. At this time, the Rays have not yet decided whether to put him on the 60-day DL or to see if he can make it back before then. Even when he does come back, it will be to DH or possibly play first base as time behind the plate will likely take a bit longer for him. He has the most upside of the second catchers (by ADP) but you are most likely going to be without his services for at least a third of the season.

Travis d'Arnaud - D'Arnaud had a terrible 2016 that was scarred with a rotator cuff injury. Shoulder injuries are terrible for hitters and it was noticeable for d'Arnaud as his power numbers disappeared. Perhaps the issues with his swing last year were related to that as he has also re-worked his swing this offseason. If the shoulder is healthy and he gets back into double-digit homer totals, there is value here because he still hits for a decent catcher average. He just must stay on the field, but back-to-back sub-300 plate appearance seasons are tough to overlook.

Sandy Leon - Leon never really hit in the minors, but catchers bats (Gary Sanchez aside) tend to come along after the glove. That said, Leon came out of the gate on fire raking and then faded before a little dead-cat bounce and then plummeting the rest of the season. It was a fun run of empty average while it lasted, but when he isn't hitting for average, he is not doing anything for you. There is more upside further down this list to focus on. He is having a terrible spring and while spring stats do not mean much, Leon has competition in Christian Vazquez and Blake Swihart to worry about, and Leon is no spring chicken.

Mike Zunino - Zunino has been one of my favorite whipping boys in the past. I've ripped him a few times in this column for what he can't do, but even I will admit he showed a slight glimmer of hope last year. He is getting a lot of run for his hidden power potential due to his change at the plate where he started going for more loft on the ball. Two years ago, he struggled against anything that had a wrinkle in it and was not disciplined enough to lay off pitches out of the zone. Last year, he had trouble against fastballs within the zone before his demotion. When he came back up, he hit more homers but Andrew Perpetua of FanGraphs showed something earlier this month about how Zunino is getting too much loft on the ball and that perhaps he is due for a regression of home runs.

Devin Mesoraco - Mesoraco is a complete wild card. Pre-injuries, he was a favorite target of folks, but hip and shoulder issues has wiped out his last two seasons. If, and that is a large if, he is fully recovered, then perhaps he can tap into some of that old power. However, he is already talking to writers this spring about not being 100 percent healthy, so you could get 350 plate appearances or you could get 50 plate appearances again.

Austin Hedges - Hedges is on two of the three teams I drafted, but it was not due to any amount of number crunching I did. All the credit for any interest I had in Hedges goes to Jeff Sullivan for this article that he wrote in early February. Hedges has made some changes to his swing, which is a good thing because he was not hitting until he spent the time in the stratosphere of El Paso. If you're not familiar with the park environment there, check out John Jaha's 1991 season in the minors. His defense already has him in the majors because it is that good, so the risk is he sees a ton of playing time hitting eighth and struggles to stay over the Mendoza Line, but Hedges is there for the taking in the dollar days or the final round of a draft.

Derek Norris - Norris is my target as second catcher, but I have not yet come up with him. Truth be told, it is weird to target a guy who is a free agent, but at least he has a track record and it appears his awful numbers last year were hiding an injury. Despite the struggles last year, Norris still hit 14 homers for a second consecutive season and even threw in nine steals, though that latter was heavily manager influenced as rookie skipper Andy Green loved to run. Norris is going two rounds behind Sandy Leon and yet has a lot more upside.

Yan Gomes - Gomes has also been hurt as a shoulder injury mid-summer ruined his season. The thing is, he was not exactly setting the world on fire prior to that injury. He had the same walk and strikeout rates from 2015, but his batting average tanked nearly 50 points as he generated a lot of sub-optimal contact. Gomes is an oddity because he has hit for power and average as a catcher in his career but has tanked badly the last two seasons where he has had to deal with the severe injuries that happen to catchers. He has d'Arnaud upside but also has done it before whereas d'Arnaud has not in the majors.

Francisco Cervelli - Cervelli is the safer version of Leon and he is going 30 picks later. If empty average is your thing, Cervelli is your man. He is not a slug on the bases, so he scores a decent amount of runs for catcher because he gets on base 37 percent of the time. He is the safest of the second catchers because he has a very high floor, but the floor and the ceiling are kept apart by a few sheets of paper.

James McCann - McCann belongs in the same bucket as Gomes and Norris because of the similar profiles. McCann changed his approach for more power and it helped a little bit, but it came at the cost of contact as his strikeout rate as it went from somewhat acceptable to awful. If we split the difference between his last two seasons, we get a .250 catcher with 10 homers, 30 runs and 45 RBIs. If the injuries of Gomes and Norris scare you off, this is the safer play.

Tyler Flowers - Flowers was an unlikely candidate to hit .270/.357/.420 slash line last year, but it happened because he finally hit same-handed pitching. Flowers has traditionally struggled against righties, but last year he got back to where he was in a brief sample size back in 2011.