Curt Casali (CA, TB) - 2016 Fantasy Baseball Sleepers

BALLER MOVE: Target ~380

CURRENT ADP: 415

ANALYSIS: Curt Casali put together an intriguing campaign in a very limited 2015 showing. He didn’t have a powerful bat in the minors, yet he hit 10 home runs in just 113 plate appearances for the Rays last year. Tampa Bay brought in Hank Conger to join Casali and Rene Rivera as its catchers heading into this year, but Casali has certainly shown the most with the bat out of the trio.

He had a wild 32.3% HR/FB rate, but no one expects him to have a 50 home run season. Behind the HR/FB rate was a sick 31.9% hard hit rate and he only registered soft contact on 10.1% of balls in play. Couple that with pulling the ball 50.1% of the time and you’ve got positive indicators of him squaring up the ball like a grown man.

If he starts the year with the same power stroke then he should easily command the majority of ABs behind the dish. The sample size here is obviously frighteningly small, but at his NFBC ADP of 415, I’m perfectly comfortable with rolling those dice. That points to him being sandwiched between Kurt Suzuki and Carlos Perez as far as catchers go, and I’d much rather shoot for Casali's upside.