It feels like just the other day the baseball regular season started. You wrote “I heart baseball” in permanent marker on your arm, then you met a girl who wrote “I heart guys who heart baseball” on her arm, then, during sex in July, you screamed out, “Give it to me, Giancarlo!” and now you don’t have baseball or a girlfriend. C’mon, calendar, make like a soldier and turn to March. The only cure for the post-baseball season blues — recapping the preseason top twenty lists and being hand-fed Doritos. First up, Cool Ranch and our preseason Top 20 Catchers for 2018. It’s important to look back before we look ahead to 2018. To paraphrase the one and only B-Real, “How do you know where you’re at, if you don’t know where you’ve been? Understand where I’m coming from?” It wouldn’t be fair for me to preseason rank the players, then rank them again in the postseason based on my opinion, so these postseason top 20 lists are ranked according to our Fantasy Baseball Player Rater. It’s cold hard math, y’all! Please, for the love that all is holy, don’t ask me if this is for next year. Anyway, here’s the top 20 catchers for 2018 fantasy baseball and how they compared to where I originally ranked them:
1. J.T. Realmuto – Catchers are hilarious this year. Not haha hilarious like The Ha! Network, but haha like Nelson Muntz, mock-laughing and pointing. There’s one catcher in the top 90 overall, and only one catcher who returned more than $14. So, if you, say, drafted a catcher before the top 90 or paid more than $14, you got duped, especially since that catcher you drafted was not Jerry Tomato Realmuto. Jerry Tomato to the rest of the catchers, “Let’s go, ketchup!” Also, Jerry Tomato’s stats were, well, yawnstipating for any player who is not a catcher. Barely 20 homers, no real steals, decent but not great batting average. I think the catchers have taken offense to me saying to punt them every year and have revolted into being revolting. Preseason Rank #3, 2018 Projections: 86/19/58/.283/9 in 521 ABs, Final Numbers: 74/21/74/.277/3 in 477 ABs
2. Yadier Molina – Next year’s catcher rankings: Y bother. As in just draft someone with a name starting with Y. Preseason Rank #6, 2018 Projections: 54/16/67/.266/6 in 472 ABs, Final Numbers: 55/20/74/.261/4 in 459 ABs
3. Yasmani Grandal – How about that preseason worry about Austin Barnes stealing Grandal’s playing time? Unsubstantiated and unfounded! Also, something I haven’t mentioned yet but pertains to all the catchers, I wasn’t totally off on my projections, it’s just the catchers sucked so bad that they nearly reached my preseason projections but found themselves about ten rankings spots ahead of where I thought they’d end up, i.e., there was no top catchers this year. Preseason Rank #15, 2018 Projections: 49/20/64/.249 in 413 ABs, Final Numbers: 65/24/68/.241/2 in 440 ABs
4. Salvador Perez – My Perez ranking and the number one thing they hear in dry cleaners are both ‘spot on.’ Preseason Rank #4, 2018 Projections: 55/26/75/.264 in 510 ABs, Final Numbers: 52/27/80/.235/1 in 510 ABs
5. Evan Gattis – CBS ranked him in the top 20 overall. If you drafted wearing overalls, you’d be less wrong. Preseason Rank #16, 2018 Projections: 45/18/58/.249 in 412 ABs, Final Numbers: 49/25/78/.226/1 in 407 ABs
6. Wilson Ramos – His projections vs. end of season rank is just yet another example of how bad the catchers were. I was expecting more from him, and ranked him later! Look at how many runs he ended up with, a cold hard WUT. Thirty-three 1st basemen scored more runs! Chris Davis of I’M IN RUNNING FOR THE WORST PLAYER OF ALL-TIME scored more runs! Preseason Rank #7, 2018 Projections: 52/21/68/.254 in 445 ABs, Final Numbers: 39/15/70/.306 in 382 ABs
7. Robinson Chirinos – Uh-oh Chirinos was a top ten catcher. He wasn’t even owned in more than 15% of leagues! Preseason Rank #21, 2018 Projections: 41/15/50/.240/1 in 351 ABs, Final Numbers: 48/18/65/.222/2 in 360 ABs
8. Yan Gomes – Illustrative True Story Alert! In my 15-team league, I was able to grab Gomes off waivers in July. He’s was better than nearly half of the league’s owned catchers if no one owned two, which was not the case. And you wonder why I say punt catchers? You can get a top ten one off waivers midseason. Preseason Rank #29, 2018 Projections: 36/11/40/.242 in 289 ABs, Final Numbers: 52/16/48/.266 in 403 ABs
9. Willson Contreras – Also, missed on Contreras, but since I told everyone to not draft him, it couldn’t hurt you. On Contreras specifically, his BABIP from 2017 to 2018 is nearly identical, which means he was unlucky. He swung and made contact with more pitches outside the zone, so it shouldn’t be surprising his soft contact was in the bottom ten of the league with guys like Hosmer, Billy Hamilton and Eduardo Nunez. His HR/FB was such a huge drop off it’s like something you’d see from Ryan Braun after being visited by a FedEx delivery man. Preseason Rank #2, 2018 Projections: 73/24/82/.276/6 in 504 ABs, Final Numbers: 50/10/54/.249/4 in 474 ABs
10. Francisco Cervelli – Totally missed on Cervelli, which means I was off by ten-ish homers. Or a good week from two outfielders. Even when you miss on a catcher, if you punt, it can’t hurt you. Preseason Rank #39, 2018 Projections: 34/3/29/.242/3 in 342 ABs, Final Numbers: 39/12/57/.259/2 in 332 ABs
11. Kurt Suzuki – This guys is right there with Cervelli as guys I just didn’t believe in. Oh well, winsome, unattractive some. I’m getting that cliche wrong, aren’t I? Preseason Rank #35, 2018 Projections: 25/7/28/.277 in 221 ABs, Final Numbers: 45/12/50/.271 in 347 ABs
12. Buster Posey – *insert All-Star Game photo from a few years back of Joe Mauer inadvertently sneezing on Posey* Oh my God, that’s what happened! Preseason Rank #5, 2018 Projections: 69/12/80/.309/3 in 509 ABs, Final Numbers: 47/5/41/.284/3 in 398 ABs
13. Gary Sanchez – I’d contend (for a featherweight championship with a bunch of elderly people) that Sanchez was actually much more of a hindrance than a barely top 15 catcher. You couldn’t drop him, because you paid so much for him. You paid so much for him you didn’t draft another hitter or pitcher who could’ve actually helped you. Sanchez was a literal team killer. Sanchez did you dirty. Preseason Rank #1, 2018 Projections: 83/30/95/.279/2 in 527 ABs, Final Numbers: 51/18/53/.186/1 in 323 ABs
14. Tucker Barnhart – Not to be confused with *ucker Barnhard from Be Silent, Lambs. Preseason Rank #38, 2018 Projections: 25/5/38/.267/3 in 353 ABs, Final Numbers: 50/10/46/.248 in 460 ABs
15. Mitch Garver – Can I tell you a true story? Stop trying to sit on my lap! Not that kind of story. It’s a story about Mitch Garver, so a family-friendly story. I wrote up some of this recap two weeks ago, and, at the time, Garver was ranked 20th overall. Don’t point this out to say Garver was something special in the final two weeks. This is to show how whatever some of these players’ stats are that you can leapfrog multiple guys in like ten games. Preseason Rank Unranked, Final Numbers: 38/7/45/.268 in 302 ABs
16. Jorge Alfaro – I was pretty excited about Alfaro in the preseason, and maybe he would’ve got closer to my optimistic projections if Kapler would’ve played him, or the Phils wouldn’t have replaced him with Ramos. Definitely outperformed Jorge Alquinoa. Preseason Rank #10, 2018 Projections: 43/18/61/.232/3 in 507 ABs, Final Numbers: 35/10/37/.262/3 in 344 ABs
17. Elias Diaz – Look at his numbers. I’d laugh but I may never catch my breath again. And with a cursory glance his numbers look better than Posey’s! Preseason Unranked, Final Numbers: 33/10/34/.286 in 252 ABs
18. Mike Zunino – Nearly every catcher built on their previous season like a wrecking ball builds on a tower of Jenga. Preseason Rank #9, 2018 Projections: 51/27/69/.217/1 in 446 ABs, Final Numbers: 37/20/44/.201 in 373 ABs
19. Austin Hedges – If you were in a two catcher league, it was best you punted both catchers, not just one, and if your 2nd catcher was as good as Hedges, that’s just terrific. And also seriously awful. Preseason Rank #11, 2018 Projections: 41/21/58/.215/3 in 408 ABs, Final Numbers: 29/14/37/.231/3 in 303 ABs
20. Austin Romine – Before you think about how awful Romine was while making the top 20, think about how much worse Lucroy was to not make the top 20! Preseason Unranked, Final Numbers: 30/10/42/.244/1 in 242 ABs
