No one carries two catchers in one catcher leagues. If you do, you probably suffer from mushy brain. There’s a cure for that, stop reading ESPN’s fantasy baseball advice. So in 12 team fantasy baseball leagues, you have 10 to 15 catchers at any time to choose from off of waivers. Hey, Miguel Olivo’s guest judging on RuPaul’s Drag U and he’s hitting! What do you know, Rod Barajas looks less Barajas-y! Skinny Pudge is seeing fat pitches! It’s ironic, if I’m using ironic correctly, and helpful for my fantasy team! Most catchers are passed around like blow at a Eric Dane/Rebecca Gayheart clam bake. That, there, is reason enough to punt catcher. There’s always available options on waivers.
The top 4 options at catcher last year were Mauer, Martinez, Posey and McCann. There’s one waiver wire pick-up there. After those guys, we have Buck, Napoli, Olivo, Soto and Ruiz. Three waiver wire pick-ups (Buck, Olivo and Ruiz), two guys who were drafted late in drafts (Soto and Napoli) and one of those guys I had to beg with people all year to hold onto (Napoli). It’s like this every year with catchers. If you hopped out of a DeLorean to tell me Russell Martin, Ryan Doumit, Chris Iannetta, Saltalamacchia and Arencibia ended up in the top 10 catchers in 2011, I’d say, “I told you Salty, Iannetta and Arencibia were good bargains.” Catchers are unpredictable and bunched together in value. Open up your little oddly proportioned arms and embrace that fact.
Finally, the last reason why you should punt catcher. John Buck. He’s available in every draft. Always is. No one drafts The Midnight Cowboy until around the 18th round. His stats last year were 53/20/66/.281. Victor Martinez’s stats were 64/20/79/.302/1. V-Mart gets drafted 29th overall. The difference between the two was 11 Runs, 13 RBIs, some average and a steal. Flying whoop. Instead of V-Mart, you could draft F-Her. Whereas instead of John Buck, you could draft Kevin Slowey. Oh. Okay. Those are even. A first baseman comparison would be instead of V-Mart, you take Adam Dunn. At Buck’s spot, you draft Gaby Sanchez. Huge difference there, too. A shortstop comparison would be Reyes vs. Scutaro. Another huge difference. At catcher, there’s hardly any difference. You can get away with not having a top one and it won’t hurt your team as much. No pepper games allowed, but you can always punt catcher.
