Early ADP Tiers: Catchers
A quick look at the catcher position using early ADP data and projections
Other positions covered so far:
We’re ripping through the early ADP and tiering off each position as we go down the draft board. I add short comments when I think they’re useful, but this is a high-level post series. For the nitty-gritty details, check out the team previews series, which is in the early stages.
Tier One
Cal Raleigh
Tier Two
William Contreras
Shea Langeliers
Catcher ADP varies by league type. You can probably bump most of these guys down significantly in your standard one-catcher leagues. I doubt anybody in your ten-team league with your high school buddies will be pulling on William Contreras in the top 50 picks.
This ADP comes from 12 or 15-team leagues that start two catchers. A 15-team, two-catcher league starts as many catchers as the Major Leagues do. So that pushes the ADP upward because it goes so thin after the top 15 guys are gone and most of the league still needs a starting catcher.
But I don’t have much to say about the top three options. Raleigh will be the first catcher taken in every single fantasy baseball draft this year. And that’s a buy-high that I wouldn’t do. If he hits 60 homers again, fine, I’ll lose. But I’m never ever ever going to buy into a catcher after a career season. They’re too volatile.
RALEIGH ADP TREND:
CONTRERAS & LANGELIERS TREND:
Apparently, there are some people out there willing to jump the gun on Contreras. You can’t say the same about Langeliers.
To Langeliers’ credit, he was better than Raleigh in standard roto in the second half last year. The dude hit .330 after the All-Star break and came within three homers of Raleigh. So 100 points of batting average more with very similar production everywhere else.
Does anybody think Langeliers is a .300 hitter next year? H-E-Double Hockey Sticks No. But he’s probably closer than you want to think in standard roto. I’d rather take Langy at 60 than Raleigh at 20.
Tier Three
Hunter Goodman
Ben Rice
Agustin Ramirez