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The Super Bowl is set, which means fantasy baseball will soon be mounting a full-scale assault on the world of fantasy sports. For those of us who never truly stop grinding fantasy baseball, it’s a bit anticlimactic. After all, we’ve been offering fantasy baseball content all throughout the Hot Stove League. But if you’re new to the party, you’ve come just in time. It’s a tradition here at Fake Teams to spend an entire week on each position, and today is Day 1 of that extravaganza. Catchers.
Couldn’t we begin with a sexier position, you say? I’ll be honest and say that my initial reaction is that catcher is fairly deep this year (deeper than last year, at least). Also, the sooner we get ‘em started, the sooner we get ‘em done.
We’d love for you to dive in and haggle with our first pass at ranking the backstops. Pay particular attention to what we show as a clear-cut top nine. And make some of these pundits defend their picks, why don’t ya?
Catchers in 2020
| RANK | PLAYER | TEAM | AVG RANK | HEATH | JOE | JONATHAN | GARRETT | ZACK | MARK |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RANK | PLAYER | TEAM | AVG RANK | HEATH | JOE | JONATHAN | GARRETT | ZACK | MARK |
| 1 | J.T. Realmuto | PHI | 1.333333333 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| 2 | Gary Sanchez | NYY | 1.833333333 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| 3 | Yasmani Grandal | CWS | 3.166666667 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 4 | Mitch Garver | MIN | 4.666666667 | 6 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 5 |
| 5 | Willson Contreras | CHC | 4.833333333 | 4 | 6 | 4 | 6 | 5 | 4 |
| 6 | Will Smith | LAD | 6.333333333 | 7 | 8 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 7 | Salvador Perez | KC | 6.833333333 | 5 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 6 |
| 8 | Wilson Ramos | NYM | 7.833333333 | 11 | 4 | 7 | 7 | 10 | 8 |
| 9 | Carson Kelly | ARI | 9.666666667 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 11 | 9 | 11 |
| 10 | Jorge Alfaro | MIA | 11.5 | 10 | 16 | 10 | 13 | 8 | 12 |
| 11 | Christian Vazquez | BOS | 12.5 | 17 | 10 | 13 | 10 | 16 | 9 |
| 12 | Omar Narvaez | MIL | 13.16666667 | 8 | 15 | 11 | 9 | 12 | 24 |
| 13 | Travis d'Arnaud | ATL | 14.66666667 | 13 | 17 | 14 | 15 | 15 | 14 |
| 14 | Sean Murphy | OAK | 14.83333333 | 14 | 14 | 16 | 19 | 13 | 13 |
| 15 | Tom Murphy | SEA | 15.5 | 12 | 31 | 12 | 17 | 11 | 10 |
| 16 | Yadier Molina | STL | 17.16666667 | 16 | 23 | 15 | 12 | 19 | 18 |
| 17 | Francisco Mejia | SDP | 17.33333333 | 15 | 26 | 18 | 14 | 14 | 17 |
| 18 | Danny Jansen | TOR | 17.83333333 | 20 | 11 | 22 | 18 | 20 | 16 |
| 19 | Roberto Perez | CLE | 20 | 22 | 24 | 19 | 16 | 24 | 15 |
| 20 | Kurt Suzuki | WAS | 20.66666667 | 18 | 18 | 17 | 23 | 26 | 22 |
| 21 | Buster Posey | SFG | 21.16666667 | 24 | 19 | 23 | 20 | 22 | 19 |
| 22 | Jason Castro | LAA | 22 | 19 | 12 | 21 | 32 | 23 | 25 |
| 23 | Robinson Chirinos | TEX | 22 | 21 | 27 | 24 | 22 | 17 | 21 |
| 24 | Tucker Barnhart | CIN | 25 | 23 | 21 | 25 | 27 | 31 | 23 |
| 25 | Willians Astudillo | MIN | 26.5 | 33 | 22 | 28 | 21 | 35 | 20 |
| 26 | Yan Gomes | WAS | 27.33333333 | 27 | 28 | 27 | 31 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | Chance Sisco | BAL | 28.33333333 | 28 | 13 | 38 | 34 | 27 | 30 |
| 28 | James McCann | CWS | 29.16666667 | 32 | 35 | 20 | 25 | 34 | 29 |
| 29 | Elias Diaz | COL | 31.66666667 | 30 | 20 | 37 | 33 | 42 | 28 |
| 30 | Austin Romine | DET | 32 | 25 | 26 | 49 | 28 |
Castro versus Chirinos is a fun battle to me. Similar profiles, at least as far as fantasy is concerned (power and batting average risk). Anyway, I ran a bunch of polls yesterday, and that was one of them. Looks like Chirinos is the clear winner, and NFBC ADP data agrees. Guess I’m crazy for all those barrels. Castro ranked 14th in barrels per plate appearance in 2019, tied with George Springer and Pete Alonso. Pretty nice company. And we know that right field wall got lowered. Anyway, feel free to go pile on with some votes...
Be sure to come back around at high noon for our State of the Position: Catchers in 2020!
Okay one more:
— Fake Teams (@faketeams) January 20, 2020