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It's your resident catcher advocate here, with my weekly defense for baseball's most maligned position. Instead of giving into easy narratives about the lack of talent at the catcher position and how they're the kickers of fantasy baseball, I'm here to create a place where catchers are celebrated for how they can help our teams.
Each week, I will take a look at the upcoming schedule ahead and give you my favorite streaming options at catcher. By looking at lineup trends, amount of games ahead, the location of the games, and potential pitching matchups, I'll try to guide you towards catchers that I think can be most useful for you in the upcoming week. For each catcher listed, I'll also add a chart that will provide you with data about the potential opposing pitchers that I think are meaningful in terms of allowing potential fantasy production. Plus, I'll also give a short explanation about why this catcher made the list. Every week I'll also look back at my previous recommendations so that we can have some transparency about what's working or not.
Since many fantasy managers will pay no attention to the catcher spot, your ability to constantly look for the best matchups will be a good way to get an advantage over your competition.
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Last Week Check-In
This does not include stats from Sunday 8/29
- Daulton Varsho (7 starts) 3-22, 1 HR, 1 RBI, 2 Runs (LOSS - playing time was nice though
- Carson Kelly (4 starts) 4-16, 2 HR, 4 RBI, 3 Runs (WIN - solid overall contributions)
- Riley Adams (3 starts) 4-13, 3 runs (WIN - average and runs helped but not much else
- Luis Torrens (3 starts) 6-17, 7 RBI, 1 Run (WIN - love the average and RBI totals)
SEASON STREAMING RECORD: 49-41
All matchup projections are made in conjunction with Roster Resource Probables Grid
Week Twenty-Three Catcher Waiver Wire (8/30 - 9/4)
For the purposes of this article, we are considering a "streaming catcher" one who is rostered in under 50% of Yahoo! leagues. Whether or not these catchers will be useful for you will depend entirely on your league size and the number of catchers you need to play. In order to help, I will keep a weekly list of "Untouchables," meaning catchers who, in my opinion, should NOT (if healthy) be dropped for a streaming option.
Untouchables: Catchers who shouldn't be dropped for streamers in any format: J.T. Realmuto, Salvador Perez, Willson Contreras, Will Smith, Omar Narvaez, Christian Vazquez, Sean Murphy, Eric Haase, and Buster Posey.
Elias Diaz, Colorado Rockies
16% Rostered
Diaz has four games in Coors this week, so his inclusion here is self-explanatory. However, it's my job to explain, so I will. This year, Diaz is hitting .280/.341/.528 at home with eight home runs, 21 RBI, and 25 runs scored. Those are pretty solid numbers. He's also just been seeing the ball well over the last two weeks, ranking eighth among all catchers in wRC+ and hitting .323 with a .613 slugging percentage. I know that the Braves arms he'll see are all pretty solid, but, again, it's Coors and they have some home run and hard contact issues, which is something that Diaz can absolutely take advantage of. Considering Diaz will also begin the week facing two pitchers who will each only be making their second MLB start, it's possible that we could see another big week from Diaz, which makes him well worth rostering in most league formats.
Carson Kelly, Arizona Diamondbacks
22% Rostered
Even after a rough week, Daulton Varsho remains under-rostered and you can certainly still play him here; however, I wanted to highlight Carson Kelly because he is hitting .346 on the season against left-handed pitchers with a .679 slugging percentage, 1.149 OPS, and seven home runs. He's starting to heat up of late, and, as you can see from the table above, he'll get three left-handers and a bullpen game in his six-game week next week. You also love to see those HR/FB% and barrel rates from the left-handed pitchers Kelly will face. Blake Snell has certainly been better of late as he's changed his pitch mix, but it's hard to fully buy into the fact that Snell can't implode on the road still. Marco Gonzales and Tyler Anderson have also basically just been league average pitchers, so neither of those matchups worries me, which is why I think you can run both Varsho and Kelly out during the week. Varsho has been the sexier name lately, but Kelly is hitting .250 with a .500 slugging percentage over the last two weeks, clubbing two home runs and knocking in five runs, so it hasn't been totally minimal production. Given his success against left-handed arms, I'm willing to run with it this weekend.
Travis d'Arnaud, Atlanta Braves
47% Rostered
The first three games are clearly not going to be a picnic (although I bet Stephen Vogt starts one of the games against a right-hander), but I'm not overly worried about Julio Urias and d'Arnaud will then get four games in Coors Field to close out the week. Since being activated off of the IL, d'Arnaud is hitting .250 with two home runs and six RBI while batting in the middle of a still-pretty-solid Braves lineup. Given the amount of red in the image above, I don't love the schedule, but this is a solid major league hitter getting four games in Coors, so I think he's absolutely worth a roll of the dice in that scenario.
Jorge Alfaro, Miami Marlins
7% Rostered
Over the last two weeks, Alfaro is hitting .302 with a home run, four runs scored, 11 RB, and two stolen bases. The RBI total is second among all catchers over that span, trailing only the absurd Salvador Perez, and the stolen base total is tops among all catchers. Now, two stolen bases aren't going to win you your league, but it helps in a category that not many catchers can help in, which isn't something to sneeze at. I'm also not sure we should always count on those kinds of gaudy RBI totals from him, but he's hitting in the middle of a lineup that has a little bit of spunk and going up against two pitching staffs that are having real issues at the moment. I know there is a lot of red in the Phillies part of the schedule, but Ranger Suarez's numbers are supported by a majority of the season in the bullpen and Kyle Gibson has been gradually coming back down to earth since his hot start. Zack Wheeler is definitely an ace, so that's a bad matchup, the Mets schedule is also pretty cushy now that Rich Hill and Taijuan Walker have started to experience some regression and Carlos Carrasco simply isn't back to his old self. All-in-all, there are five matchups on here that I'm not too worried about.
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