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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
Not including Sunday's games (6/13):
- Omar Narvaez (4 starts) 3-18, 2 Runs (LOSS - Expected a lot more with games in Coors Field)
- Gary Sanchez (3 starts) 5-15, 3 HR, 5 Runs, 4 RBI (WIN - love the HR and now he's back over 50%)
- Jorge Alfaro (4 starts) 5-17, 5 Runs (WIN - he didn't do a lot but the AVG and Runs help)
- Max Stassi (3 starts) 1-13, 3 Runs, 1 RBI (LOSS - the bat cooled considerably this week)
- Ryan Jeffers (3 starts) 4-13, 1 HR, 1 Runs, 4 RBI (WIN - solid overall performance)
SEASON STREAMING RECORD: 30-24
All matchup projections are made in conjunction with Roster Resource and @Rotoquotes on Twitter
Week Thirteen Catcher Waiver Wire (6/21 - 6/27)
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 these streamers in any format: J.T. Realmuto, Salvador Perez, Yasmani Grandal, Willson Contreras, Will Smith, Christian Vazquez, Buster Posey, and Yadier Molina.
I'm not gonna lie, this is gonna be a rough week to stream. There aren't as many great options out there below 50% now and some of our favorite streamers have really difficult weeks. If you have guys like Stassi or Eric Haase, you may want to hold them, but Stassi also gets only five games this week and two are against Anthony DeSclafani and Kevin Gausman before taking on the Rays. Hasse has a 39% strikeout rate over the last two weeks and faces Framber Valdez, Lance McCullers Jr., and Luis Garcia. Yan Gomes has been hitting the ball well lately and gets six games this week, but it's a murderer's row of arms: Zach Eflin, Zack Wheeler, Pablo Lopez, Trevor Rogers, and Sandy Alcantara. Holy hell; we're not trying to attack that.
What I'm saying is that this might not be the week to spend hard-earned FAAB at the catcher spot. If you have solid enough production as is, take it for this week and plan for the final week of June.
Omar Narvaez, Milwaukee Brewers
48% Rostered
What are we doing here? How does Narvaez remain under 50%-rostered? He's hitting .310 in 51 games on the season with six home runs, 22 runs scored, and 19 RBI. You'll take that all day from the catcher's spot. In truth, I'd take him over a few guys on the untouchables list too (Vazquez and Molina for starters). Over the past two weeks, Narvaez is the sixth-best catcher by wRC+, which we mentioned in past weeks is a great stat for simply seeing who has been impactful on offense. He's hitting .344 across those 10 games, with an identical 15.8% strikeout and walk rate. Since he hits at the top of an improving Brewers lineup, he also has eight runs over that span, which is second among all catchers, behind only Stassi's 14.
Another boon for Narvaez is his schedule next week. Austin Gomber has been good, and the left-handed Narvaez may actually sit for that game, but Zac Gallen is really the only other above-average starter on this schedule. We know that Jon Gray pitches well outside of Coors, but seeing six games against the Diamondbacks and Rockies is certainly something we want when we're choosing streamers. Also remember that Narvaez is likely to get multiple at-bats against the bullpens in these series, and they are both not very good. The Rockies currently have the second-worst bullpen ERA with a 5.39 mark and the Diamondbacks aren't far behind at 4.62. That means that even if you'd like to see a bit more green on this table, you can rest assured that it will appear in the final three or four innings in each of the games next week.
William Contreras, Atlanta Braves
16% Rostered
Contreras has cooled a little bit since he burst onto the scene after his call-up, but the rookie is still putting up good numbers. Over the last two weeks, he's hitting .290 with two home runs, four runs, and four RBI. He isn't really walking much, but the slugging percentage is helpful, and the Braves lineup still has punch despite the loss of Marcell Ozuna. However, the real reason you want to roster Contreras this week is that he gets eight games. EIGHT! Even in a timeshare, he's likely to see five or six starts, which is a massive advantage for you. And yes, it's even an advantage with all that red on the table above.
I mean, let's be real, that's a lot of red. However, when you break it down, it's not as terrible as it seems. We have no idea what we're going to get from Jacob deGrom, and there's a chance he even misses that Monday start. Marcus Stroman has been really solid this year, but Contreras will also be slated to face Jerad Eickhoff, who had a 5.71 ERA in his last MLB season in 2019. When he gets to the Reds series, you see a bit of red in the table, but Vladimir Gutierrez seems like he's still a big outing waiting to happen, even after a poor showing on Saturday. Tony Santillan has looked average in his brief time up with the Reds and both Luis Castillo and Tyler Mahle have been known to allow some big innings, especially when pitching in Great American Ballpark, which is one of the top-five hitting environments in all of baseball. Oh, and it doesn't hurt that the only team in baseball with a worse bullpen ERA than Colorado is Cincinnati. At the end of the day, the schedule isn't amazing, but the number of at-bats will be and half of these games are in a phenomenal place for an offense.
Tyler Stephenson, Cincinnati Reds
8% Rostered
Not to be outdone by Narvaez, Stephenson is the fourth-best catcher by wRC+ over the past two weeks. Over that span, he's hitting .286/.483/.571 with a home run, seven runs, and five RBI. Perhaps more importantly, as a young player adjusting to the major league level, Stephenson has a 24.1% walk rate over that time, compared to a 13.8% strikeout rate. The kid is seeing the ball really well right now. He'll have a chance to keep that going this week against a relatively easy schedule. Bailey Ober has been surprisingly solid in his brief tenure with the Twins and Ian Anderson is never an arm we are excited to run hitters against, but he also isn't untouchable, especially in Great American Ballpark, as we mentioned above. Aside from that, Stephenson is set to face three lefties in JA Happ, Drew Smyly, and Sean Newcomb, even though that will likely be a bullpen game against a subpar Atlanta bullpen. Overall, there are a lot of plus matchups on this table and it's a week I would be looking forward to if I had Stephenson on my team.
Reese McGuire, Toronto Blue Jays
0% Rostered
This is more of a deep-league or NFBC format recommendation. When Alejandro Kirk went down with an oblique injury, we said to watch out for McGuire as a deep-league asset. I wasn't sure he would wrestle the starting job away from Danny Jansen, but then Jansen got hurt and McGuire found himself on the right side of a timeshare with Riley Adams. Over the last two weeks, the left-handed-hitting McGuire is batting .273 with a .545 slugging percentage. He has one home run, four runs, and two RBI, so he's not exactly filling up the statsheets, but the batting average is a boon and he gives you exposure to a dominant lineup, which is always a good thing.
As far as the schedule goes, you can't really ask for much more. The matchup with Sandy Alcantara is a tough one, but then it gets incredibly enticing. All four Orioles arms he's set to face are below-average, and he'll square off with them in a plus-hitting environment in Buffalo. I would anticipate that the Blue Jays put up some massive run totals that game, so McGuire could really close the week strong for some fantasy teams.
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