2020 Fantasy Baseball Rankings: Top 30 catchers (Updated)

If you’d like to hearken back to January of 2020, I’ll share the link to our original consensus rankings. But I’ll include that January ranking in our new table, so there’s really no need—unless you’re just that bored at home, which is entirely possible in the current times.

Mark Abell and Jonathan Butler were kind enough to join me in today’s effort. So you have our original staff consensus (which should count for something) as well as three updated sets of rankings. Here goes:

There’s a lot going on there, so I’ll simplify things a bit:

Moving up in a big way are:

Danny Jansen (C18 to C14)
Austin Romine (C30 to C26)
Jacob Stallings (C31 to C27)

We also have Buster Posey and Chance Sisco bumping up two spots, but I don’t think those moves are as notable. The above three are easy enough to explain. Jansen’s fortunes shifted (at least in the court of public opinion) when fellow Toronto backstop Reese McGuire was arrested for “exposure of sexual organs” in February of this year. However, Jansen’s defensive growth last year (Gold Glove finalist) coupled with his hitting ability probably meant he was already the frontrunner. Add in a blistering spring (9-for-17, 4 HR, 13 RBI) and that’s a recipe for moving up the ladder. He’s one of my favorite C2 options in 2020.

Romine and Stallings aren’t overly interesting, but neither of their respective clubs have added catcher depth to challenge their playing time. They each profile better as third catchers for your fake teams, but both have a chance to be decent in batting average, which isn’t nothing. And you never know what might happen in a shortened season.

Now for the “movers” in the other direction...

Travis d’Arnaud (C13 to C16)
Yan Gomes (C26 to C29)
Tyler Flowers (C26 to C30)

It’s interesting to me that both Braves catchers pop up here. I think the timeshare (which I already wrote about) isn’t good for either player. Of course, maybe the short season means the Braves will run d’Arnaud into the ground, making him an absurd value. There’s still no telling what will transpire in 2020. But the timeshare is a concern.

As for Yan Gomes, do we really care that much? That’s a correction we probably should have made earlier, anyway. Romine and Stallings bumping ahead of Gomes makes sense—those two are at least slated to see the vast majority of catching work for their respective teams...while it’s feasible that Kurt Suzuki (the better hitter) gets more work than Gomes in a short season.

And that’s it for this edition of updated rankings! Next up is first base, and I wonder if we’ll get a little bit more action once we move away from catchers. I’d think so.