Greetings plebeians and plebeianettes. You may remember a little about this series from the former me: Oregon Nut Cups. Or you probably don’t because it’s been like 2 years since it happened and I’m changing the format to target one player rather than rambling about everyone based on their position. But of course, you don’t care about taking a trip down memory lane with me nor down mammory lane as we talk about great scenes from adult entertainment history. Asia Carrera, my heart and crusty socks go to you…nay, you’re here to snuggle up to some bargain players in your draft this year. As we all know – and if you don’t, now you do – I’m talking to you deep leaguers. Whether it’s a 14 teamer or a large starting roster, you gotta find bargains where you can and of all positions this is tantamount, catcher is probably the biggest in my book. It’s one where the haves and the have nots line isn’t as big as people want to draw it up to be and where you can get away with ignoring a bunch of players once the top few fly off the board…which is just how I like it. Keep in mind, I’m the artist formerly known as ONC that brought you Wilin Rosario with my Wilin Rosario Sleeper post back in 2012. Way back then, you could get a gallon of gas for about 25 cents, your shoes shined for a nickel and Rosario went undrafted. My how times have changed…So here I’m going to bring to you the man that has pretty much been declared the starting catcher for the Indians for this year – Yan Gomes – and why he’s a nice snag in deeper leagues for the 2014 Fantasy Baseball season…
When you look back at Yan Gomes’ ending 2013 line, its a little weird not much has been said about his near promised starting role for the Indians in 2014. He finished the year with 11 HRs – one less than Molina and tied with Mauer – and hit .294, which would’ve been good enough to tie him for 4th amongst catchers for average were it not for one thing: PA. Curse you Pennsylvania! It was bad enough you gave us M. Night Shyamalan and now you go and hold a catcher back! Ahem, before I was italically interrupted, what I was intending to mean by PA was plate appearances. As in, he didn’t have enough to qualify so when you go searching for these numbers, you gotta reduce your minimums, y’all! It was there all along and as a deep leaguer, you notice these things. Note he also finished the year with a higher ISO than three catchers with 20+ HRs and you’re starting to see the potential in Yan as a draft day Rip Van Winkle of a sleeper. Now before you go down the obligatory route of saying ‘small sample size’ to which I have to obligatorily respond ‘that’s what she said!’, let’s take a look and see if his underlying stats and production are that much of an outlier compared to his minor and major career. To be fair, I don’t think the average holds in the .290s as he had a fairly monstrous BABIP last year at .342. But for funsies, let’s pair up his numbers from 2012 with the Blue Jays when he had a horrendous .246 BABIP with last years numbers and see what kinda Frankencatcher we get: 121 games, 433 plate appearances, 15 HRs, and a .271 average. The scary part? The average is in line with his career major and minor league norm so maybe you get at worst .260. It’s manageable either way. And if Yan fails? Meh, it’s catcher. Y’all get all moist over Buster Posey and all he did was hit 15 HRs and hit .294 last year, albeit with more at-bats and in a juicier part of a not so juicy lineup. If that satiates your thirst so be it but in my book, simply put: when and where you can, you buy Yan.
Sky Sperling is a contributor for Razzball Football and Razzball Baseball. He’s also a lover of fine beer, fine women and fine-toothed combs. You can follow him on twitter @Sky_Razzball and in your most sweetest of dreams.
