The MLB offseason is in a bit of a cold spell after an exciting Winter Meetings, whichmakes it a good time to take stock of what happened in 2024 and see what lessons we can learn for 2025. In order to do that, we’re going to go position by position to break down the overall landscape and help find the best pockets of value.
Similar to last year, when I wrote my State of the Union for each position, I’m going to look at the value produced in 2024 by regular starters at each position to see where the most value is coming from each position and identify areas of strength that we can target in our drafts and areas of weakness that we can try and avoid. Last year, much of my analysis was based on the impact of the new rule changes, so this year we’ll just look at the overall landscape and see how much carried over.
Table of Contents
- 2024 Player Rater Review
- 2024 Roto Category Review
- Key Takeaways
- Off-season storylines
- My top 15 rankings at the position for 2025
A few weeks ago, we started with first base and then covered second base, third base, and shortstop, so now we’ll wrap up the infield by talking about catchers. To get a quick sense of the position, I looked at how many shortstops earned $10 in value according to the Fangraphs Player Rater.
Fangraphs Player Rater $10+ Earned | |
2023 | 2024 |
11 | 10 |
Not a huge change here with only one fewer catcher earning double-digit value in 2024; however, quite a few of the names of the players who earned that value have changed. In 2024, we saw all of Shea Langeliers, Tyler Stephenson, Connor Wong, and Logan O’Hoppe finish with at least $10 of earned fantasy value, and Stephenson and Langeliers were the best of that group in 2023 by earning just $5.3. The other six names who earned double-digit value in 2024 are repeat offenders William Contreras, Adley Rutschman, Will Smith, Cal Raleigh, Yainer Diaz, and Salvador Perez.
So is there a changing of the guard at catcher? Well, not quite. Of the players who earned double-digit value in 2023, all of J.T. Realmuto, Willson Contreras, Sean Murphy, and Keibert Ruiz played through various injuries in 2024 and feel like contenders to earn double-digit value in 2025, which makes this position feel a little bit deeper at first blush than the total above would indicate. However, we can’t deny the young talent that is starting to creep into the conversation here.
Category Breakdown
Now we’ll see what value the catcher position provided in each standard category in a Roto 5x5 league. I sorted by players who accumulated 300 plate appearances and looked to see if there was any meaningful change in the standard 5x5 offensive categories (batting average, home runs, runs, RBI, and steals). I did this for 2022 and 2023 last year, so we’ll compare those numbers and then dive into WHAT changed, WHY it may have happened, and HOW it should impact our 2025 draft plan.
Batting Average
Average over .240 | ||
2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
15 | 17 | 14 |
As we start the category-specific breakdowns, we see another slight dip in production at the catcher spot; however, we’ve never really counted on our catchers too much for an impact batting average, so this shouldn’t surprise or bother us. For the second year in a row, we saw three catchers hit .280 or better, including both William Contreras and Yainer Diaz. Connor Wong also hit .280 in 2024 after hitting just .235 in 2023, so it’s unclear just how sustainable that is, and Gabriel Moreno followed up his .284 season in 2023 by battling hand injuries and hitting .266 in 2024, so there is some uncertainty at the top of the category.
At the end of the day, few catchers are going to actively help your team’s batting average, but there are a good number of options who won’t hurt you. Drafting any of the names I mentioned above plus Salvador Perez, J.T. Realmuto, Elias Diaz, Willson Contreras, Tyler Stephenson, Adley Rutschman, Alejandro Kirk, or Will Smith should at least keep you afloat in the batting average category.
Home Runs
Home Runs at 20 or over | ||
2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
6 | 10 | 7 |
Another category and another slight dip in production at the catcher spot. We see a lot of the same names at the top of the position with Cal Raleigh, Salvador Perez, and Shea Langeliers finishing as the top three home run hitters at the position. It’s fair to note that of that trio only Perez hit over .225, so the top of the catcher position is giving us a lot of power with some limited batting average, which is not ideal. William Contreras, Will Smith, and Logan O’Hoppe all hit at least 20 home runs with usable batting averages, and Adley Rutschman hit 19 home runs, so he almost qualified without hurting your average as well, which means there are some more well-rounded hitters if you’re OK dropping your power ceiling a bit.
Almost all the hitters who dropped from being over this plateau in 2023 were guys who were impacted by injury. Sean Murphy, Francisco Alvarez, Willson Contreras, and J.T. Realmuto all hit 20 home runs or more in 2023, but none of them played over 100 games in 2024. Murphy was an abject disaster the entire season, but I feel inclined to chalk that up to injury and fluke results rather than him somehow forgetting how to hit. Realmuto may be the only player on the real decline here, which means we could maybe count on ten to 12 catchers who could pop 20 home runs in 2025, especially if Yainer Diaz can get back somewhere close to his 23 home run production from 2023.
RBI
RBI at 70 or over | ||
2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
3 | 7 | 7 |
There’s some year-to-year consistency here when it comes to RBIs. We did see better results at the high-end though with five catchers driving in 80 runs or more after just three did it in 2023 and two did it in 2022. We also had three catchers with over 90 RBI in 2024 (nobody had done that in the last two seasons) and both Salvador Perez and Cal Raleigh drove in 100 runs or more, which is a massive total at catcher.
Of the seven catchers who had over 70 RBI in 2024, five of them did so in 2023 as well: Perez, Raleigh, Will Smith, Adley Rutschman, and William Contreras. Those names keep coming up a lot here, which means we’re starting to see the top half of the position start to come into the picture a bit more clearly.
Runs
Runs at 70 or over | ||
2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
2 | 5 | 4 |
There’s not a lot of production here at the catcher spot, but catchers rarely hit near the top of a batting order, so it does make some sense that they wouldn’t put up crazy run totals. William Contreras did post 99 runs scored, which is an admittedly massive total regardless of position, and he was the only player with over 77 runs scored at the position last year, so nobody else was even close.
Of the four catchers who posted 70 runs scored in 2024, three of them were repeat names in Contreras, Will Smith, and Cal Raleigh. Adley Rutschman did score 68 total runs, so you could consider him in that group of four catchers who seem locked into solid run production.
Stolen Bases
Steals at 5 or over | ||
2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
3 | 5 | 5 |
We can keep this brief: you’re not getting stolen base value at the catcher position. In years past, we drafted J.T. Realmuto in part because he could pop 20 steals and give you a major advantage at the position. Nobody else had double-digit steals in either 2022 or 2023 and with Realmuto battling knee injuries now, not one single catcher stole double-digit bases in 2024. William Contreras led the position with nine, Connor Wong has had eight in two straight years, and Big Dumper Cal Raleigh did swipe six bases in 2024 which is fun given his power numbers but doesn’t meaningfully impact your fantasy team.
Key Takeaways
Coming into the 2024 season, I talked about how much deeper the catcher position was than in years past and suggested that the smart play in one-catcher leagues was to wait and be the last player to draft a catcher. That didn’t quite pan out as we got disappointing years from guys like Sean Murphy, Francisco Alvarez, J.T. Realmuto, Willson Contreras, Keibert Ruiz, and Gabriel Moreno to name a few. However, considering many of those poor years were connected to injury, I still believe that one-catcher league drafters don’t need to reach for a catcher early.
To me, William Contreras is the clear lead dog at the position, but I think the tier underneath him is large enough that I’m happy to just wait and see who fails and then draft the guy who best fits the current build of my team.
Offseason Storylines
- Do the Braves trade Sean Murphy or let him try to bounce back?
- Where does Francisco Alvarez hit in the Mets lineup?
- Will the Red Sox bring in competition for Connor Wong?
- Can Elias Diaz win the starting job in San Diego?
- How bad will the Cardinals’ lineup around Willson Contreras be?
- Is Miguel Amaya the starter for the Cubs?
- Does Kyle Teel break camp with the White Sox?
Top 15 Fantasy Catchers for 2025
- William Contreras - Milwaukee Brewers
- Salvador Perez - Kansas City Royals
- Yainer Diaz - Houston Astros
- Cal Raleigh - Seattle Mariners
- Will Smith - Los Angeles Dodgers
- Adley Rutschman - Baltimore Orioles
- J.T. Realmuto - Philadelphia Phillies
- Tyler Stephenson - Cincinnati Reds
- Logan O’Hoppe - Los Angeles Angels
- Francisco Alvarez - New York Mets
- Willson Contreras - St. Louis Cardinals
- Connor Wong - Boston Red Sox
- Keibert Ruiz - Washington Nationals
- Austin Wells - New York Yankees
- Elias Diaz - San Diego Padres
