LOGIN

Catchers – you can’t live with them, and in fantasy baseball, we can’t live without them.

This is a position that is not deep and not that talented after the top tier of backstops. You may get a catcher who has power but kills your average and on-base percentage. Or you may get a catcher who hits well and gets on base, but has no power at all.

There are very few perfect catchers in baseball, and the few that are close are going to be tough to get or trade for due to the scarcity of those players. But you almost feel compelled to try to go after them or hang onto them a year or two too long because for every Adley Rutschmans, there are two Martin Maldonados who just kill your team.

I came up with forty catchers to rank, but that is mostly to help fantasy owners who play in 20-team (or more) leagues or the leagues that require two catchers. If you are in a 12- to 16-team league, the Tier 4 and perhaps Tier 3 players will likely mean nothing to you.

Anyway, let’s get to the 2024 Top Keepers – Catchers.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Sal Frelick (1-for-3, 1 run) was promoted by the Brewers, and hit cleanup because you can’t stop the fun. The fun will overtake you, trample you, stampede you into oblivion if you try to stop the fun. The fun will stand on your head as you scream for your life if you try to stop it. Wow, fun doesn’t sound so fun. Yikes, glad I don’t have fun. I’m serious business and this callup is the same. I gave you a Sal Frelick fantasy just a few weeks ago where I told you to stash him, now I’m saying grab him. He was just in Itch’s top 25 fantasy baseball prospects. Itch said previously, “(Frelick is a) hit machine. Walked (8.8%) more than he struck out (7.4%) in 46 games at Triple-A, slashing .365/.435/.508 with four home runs and nine stolen bases. I have no idea why he didn’t get called up last year, and I’d like to call up a hit man to take out you-know-who.” C’mon man! Frelick is a grab in every league. Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

So far this season in Triple-A, Christopher Morel was going .330/.425/.730 with 11 homers and four steals in 29 games. That he was in the minors for the Cubs until yesterday would be the funniest thing if it wasn’t so sad. Not funnest, though Morel is a fun guy. You might be thinking, it’s not funny, who knows if Morel can hit in the majors. Please scream these letters at yourself in the mirror: A! He was a top 130 overall guy on the Player Rater last year. He was already good. In the majors. B! Christopher Morel aka Captain Mushroom was more valuable last year than Ketel Marte, Oneil Cruz, Ke’Bryan Hayes and Adley Rutschman. That was last year. Are A and B kinda the same? Yes. So what? C! There was barely a B and you want a C? Get out of here!. Not to get all stupid with prorating — “If you were to hear the song, ‘How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?’ and price every dog in every window, it would take you 37 years, 11 months and sixteen days.” Oh, shut up, Mr. Prorater! — But if you were to prorate Morel’s stats from last year, he was a 20/15/.235 hitter. That sounds just okay, due to the average, but, again, look at the guys he was already better than. I held my dog, Ted, up to my computer with the waivers page open to see if he’d lick the screen where Morel’s name was to see if he could hunt truffles. Instead, Ted licked Jose Abreu, so he was kinda truffle hunting because truffles are usually covered in sh*t. Depends on how deep your league is on whether or not you should find mushroom on your team for Morel, but he has solid speed and power, and shouldn’t be total shiitake. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Happy Saturday, Razzfriends and family! To those who are first time visitors, the snake handling is perfectly normal. None of you asked (rude), but I was on vacation last week and caught an NPB game in Japan: Yakult Swallows vs. Yokohama DeNA BayStars. The BayStars are the team that Trevor Bauer “chose” (despite many reports […]

Please, blog, may I have some more?

The crazy analytics that the Rays have that no one else has: Pinpointing what players are good at and reenforcing that some players only do what they’re good at. For unstints, they’ll tell someone like Drew Rasmussen (7 IP, 0 ER, 1hit, zero walks, 8 Ks, ERA at 0.00) “pitch well,” and only “pitch well.” Crazy, right? Sometimes they’ll say to a hitter, “Hit well.” That has never been done before by a Major League Baseball team. One time they said to Vidal Brujan, “Be terrible,” and what do you know? What did he do? I’m gonna give you one guess here. He was terrible! It’s analytics like this that allow the Rays to save money too. The Rays received a bill from their travel department and were like, “This is way too much money to travel to games,” so they said to Manuel Margot, “Fly the plane,” and that’s what he did. Analytics, that’s what this is. So, I went to look to see if Drew Rasmusen had a sleeper post written by me, but he didn’t. Guess I merely loved him vs. wrote him up. Wanna know how much pitching there is in the majors? Rasmussen has a 2.96 ERA in 243 1/3 IP in his career. Yeah, but you have to draft a top starter. Mmkay. Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

After we went over the top 10 for 2023 fantasy baseball and the top 20 for 2023 fantasy baseball in our (my) 2023 fantasy baseball rankings, it’s time for the meat and potatoes rankings. Something to stew about! Hop in the pressure cooker, crank it up to “Intense” and let’s rock with the top 20 catchers for 2023 fantasy baseball. […]

Please, blog, may I have some more?