Last preseason, I said we were "witnessing a changing of the guard at the catcher position," and to a certain extent that was true. J.T. Realmuto's run among the elites of the position came to an end, and Williams Contreras backed up his breakout by establishing himself as the position's clear top option – and one of the few players you might actually use in Fantasy Baseball even if he didn't have that little "C" next to his name.
But one place we got it wrong was in hoping that the rest of the young catchers would help make it a position of relative strength for Fantasy. That certainly didn't not happen, and it's a reminder that, if you're expecting the best-case scenario to happen at catcher, you're probably going to be disappointed.
Sure, Contreras emerged as a legitimate superstar, Yainer Diaz built on a solid rookie season, and Logan O'Hoppe and Shea Langeliers consolidated many of the gains they made in 2023, and that was all great to see. The problem is, well, everyone else.
- Position Strategies: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP
- Position Previews: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP
- Position Tiers (v. 2.0): C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP
Most notably, Adley Rutschman completely flopped, though, as we'll discuss a little later, there are reasons to be optimistic about his chances of bouncing back. But he was only the most notable of the busts at the position, a group that also included hoped-for young breakout candidates like Francisco Alvarez, Gabriel Moreno, Bo Naylor, Keibert Ruiz, and more that really hurt the depth of the position.
And, here's the thing: That should more or less be the expectation at this position. Attrition is the rule at catcher. It's why prospects at the position bust at alarmingly high rates, it's why young players tend to take much longer to develop than at other positions even when they do hit, and it's why their peaks tend to be much shorter, too. Injuries are a part of it, but it's also just the toughest position to learn at the MLB level – you've got to hit, sure, but you also have to be able to manage a pitching staff, control the running game, and increasingly, frame well. There are so many things teams value from their catchers that often, hitting ability is secondary.
Which is to say, if you have a catcher you can count on as a legitimate contributor to your Fantasy team, it is one of the biggest edges you can get. There are maybe three to five catchers who you would consider starting at a different position if you didn't have to start a catcher, and most players at the position – especially in two-catcher leagues – are going to drag your batting average down and provide fewer counting stats than basically any other starter at any other position.
There may come a day when that isn't true – say, in a world with an automatic ball-and-strike system that doesn't ask as much defensively from catchers – but you shouldn't expect the fundamental truth of the position to change in 2025. There are a handful of good hitters at the position -- more than there used to be five or 10 years ago, probably -- but there are also always a lot of ways things can go wrong.
Whether you want to be the one to pay up for one of the elite players at the position is up to you. Just know that, I don't expect the catcher position to be significantly better in 2025 than it has been in recent years. Anyone who does make that bet is typically proven wrong, after all.
Since getting to Milwaukee, Contreras has been the best of both worlds at the catcher position, combining production few others can approach with basically everyday playing time. Even if he wasn't just a catcher, Contreras would be a very strong starter in Fantasy – only eight players had as many HR, R, and RBI as Contreras did in 2024. Of those eight, only four had a better batting average, and only five had more steals. You can make a case that Contreras should be a top-25 pick in Fantasy right now.
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Betting on a mid-20s, MVP-caliber player coming off a down year is usually a good bet. In Rutschman's case, he was having an absolutely dominant campaign – he was on pace for 32 homers and 206 combined runs and RBI! – before a hand injury on June 27. He didn't even miss a game, but hit just .189/.279/.280 after that. If you're looking for a dark horse MVP candidate, Rutschman's a pretty good bet. Yes, I'm betting on a bounceback.
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It just hasn't been a good bet to write Perez off over the past half-decade or so. He bounced back from a subpar season with the second-most homers and RBI of his career in 2024. At some point, the soon-to-be 35-year-old will slow down, and when he does, it could get pretty ugly. But even the down years like 2023 make him a rare source of power and run production at the catcher position.
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Here's the question with Diaz: Can he put it all together? In 2023, he hit 23 homers in just 377 plate appearances; in 2024, his power took a step back, but he hit .299 with a 97th-percentile expected batting average to back it up. Can he do both? If so, the profile looks an awful lot like the best of Salvador Perez, with huge playing time upside and the potential for 25-plus homers with a good batting average. He has a legitimate path to the No. 1 spot at the position.
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Contreras remains an impactful bat at the catcher position, but his value is arguably the highest it has ever been in Fantasy drafts because he isn't expected to actually play catcher this season. The hope is, Contreras will stay healthier without the rigors of catching, and he can just focus on being a middle-of-the-order slugger (and passable first baseman). If he stays healthy for 150 games, Contreras absolutely could be the No. 1 catcher in Fantasy, and I'm not sure anyone else below him in the rankings really has that upside.
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Raleigh is what he is at this point: The single best source of power at the catcher position. He has also led the position in games over the past two seasons, while earning a handful of starts at DH per year, making him a rare source of volume, too. I don't expect a repeat of his 100-RBI season in 2024, but something close to 30 homers feels like a safe bet for a guy averaging 30.3 over the past three seasons.
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Will Smith hasn't quite emerged as the superstar we hoped he would be, but there's still absolutely nothing wrong with him as your starting catcher in Fantasy. You're going to get a top-10 mark at the position in homers, runs, and RBI, hopefully with a batting average that doesn't hurt you. He's not necessarily a difference-maker, but he also doesn't really carry a difference-maker's price tag anymore.
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For a while, Realmuto's rare five-category production made him the default No. 1 catcher, but he has slipped enough as he nears his mid-30s that he's closer to No. 12, so it sure seems like most are writing the potential for a bounceback off. But the thing is, it's not clear Realmuto's skills have actually collapsed here. His .339 xwOBA was higher than 2023's mark (and 2021's, while we're at it), and Realmuto still has well above-average foot speed. He stopped running after undergoing knee surgery in early June, but if that comes back, he could still be a 20-10 guy with a good average, and that's super-valuable at the catcher position.
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Langeliers was like a poor man's Cal Raleigh last season, and now he's moving into a much better home park for hitting in half his games. The quality of contact here is quite good, and Langeliers should remain a very good source of power in 2025. If he can push that average closer to .250 – his xBA was .241, for what it's worth – there's room for a pretty huge outcome here with his plus power.
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O'Hoppe is where I think there is a bit of a dropoff at the position. He provides solid power, but 2024 was a step back from the truly massive power potential he showed in an injury-plagued 2023, and with his really poor plate discipline metrics, I'm not sure I love his chances of taking another step forward. He's fine, but there's some downside risk, especially after the Angels signed an overqualified backup in Travis d'Arnaud.
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Stephenson is perfectly fine as a No. 1 catcher. He's unlikely to ever really be much more than fine entering his age-28 season, but he has hit .267/.342/.424 while averaging around 15 homers per 500 plate appearances over the past four seasons. He's a nice set-it-and-forget-it option at a position that doesn't have many of them – even a few of the guys ahead of Stephenson might not qualify for that term.
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Wells had a really solid rookie season, but there are questions as to whether he can unlock more upside. He struggled with lefties and really faded down the stretch, but he also posted strong underlying metrics, including a .339 expected wOBA that ranked sixth at the position. As a lefty in Yankee Stadium, it's not hard to see 20-homer upside here, at least.
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Alvarez hasn't come close to living up to the hype so far, and 2024 was especially disappointing as he dropped from 25 homers to 11 without enough of an improvement in his other skills to make up for it. The quality of contact was especially underwhelming for a guy who was supposed to be a legit power hitter – and not just for a catcher. He had surgery to repair a fractured thumb in April and then dealt with a shoulder injury in the summer, both of which could have sapped his power. And now he's coming back from a fractured hamate bone in Spring Training, raising questions as to whether he's actually a good bet to live up to that upside. He's a decent upside stash in the late rounds, but probably should be left for the wire in one-catcher leagues.
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We're far enough removed from Murphy's dominant first half of 2023 to assume he won't get back to that level, but I think he also deserves something of a pass for how his 2024 went. After all, Murphy suffered an oblique injury on Opening Day, the kind of injury that can take a long time to get right from and has a tendency to linger long past you are actually cleared to play. Unfortunately, his 2025 season isn't going any better, as he suffered a rib fracture in spring. He's just a late-round flier, though one with plenty of upside once he gets healthy. In the meantime, top prospect Drake Baldwin is a fine early-season replacement option who could matter all season if he lives up to expectations.
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With Contreras moving to first base, the Cardinals are going to turn things over to Herrera and Pedro Pages, and I'm hoping it is Contreras who gets the lion's share of the playing time, because there's significant upside here. A career .281/.414/.453 hitter in Triple-A, Herrera more than held his own in his first real stint in the majors last season – and his .366 xwOBA suggests he could be even better. I love the idea of drafting both Herrera and Contreras as my No. 1 and 2 catcher (respectively), this season.
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Progress is rarely linear for prospects, and that's especially true for catchers, who face an even tougher road to the majors than everyone else. So, it's possible 2024 was just the start of Bart finally living up to the prospect hype. He cut his strikeout rate to a manageable 26% and continued to hit the ball hard enough that you can dream of a 20-homer outcome here with enough playing. With Endy Rodriguez and Henry Davis around, things could get crowded in Pittsburgh fairly quickly, but if Bart repeats last season's success, he should continue to have a big role.
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The hope here is that the Rockies keep Goodman around to serve as a backup catcher and part-time outfielder, giving him, say 400 plate appearances to try to live up to what has so far been a pretty stellar minor-league track record. In 294 career games, Goodman has 80 homers and a .280/.354/.575 line, though obviously he has mostly failed to live up to that potential in the majors. However, he did hit 13 homers in just 224 PA last season, so you can see what the upside might look like if he manages to find consistent at-bats (and isn't quite as much of a drain on your batting average).
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With the Cardinals moving Willson Contreras to first base full-time for 2025, there's an opportunity for their intriguing young catching tandem of Herrera and Pedro Pages to step up, and that's exciting news for Fantasy. Pages isn't without sleeper appeal of his own – basically, any cheap catcher with conceivable upside has some sleeper appeal – but he's probably more likely to bring value with his glove than his bat. But Herrera brings legitimate upside as a hitter, even beyond his very solid .301/.373/.428 line as a part-timer in 2024. Herrera looks like he might have legitimately above-average power, and not just for a catcher – his .366 expected wOBA in 2024 was well above the league average for all hitters, as was his .160 expected ISO. Pair it with good plate discipline and swing decisions, and you don't have to squint too much to see a legitimate top-five outcome at the position here.
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Contreras is a catcher in name only these days, and that's a big deal. It opens up playing time opportunities for Ivan Herrera, one of my favorite sleepers for 2025, but it also makes Contreras one of the biggest potential difference makers at the catcher position for 2025. I think it would be a mistake to assume that a soon-to-be 33-year-old with a lengthy injury history is suddenly going to become a model of health just because he's no longer crouching down behind home plate for half the game, but at the very least, he'll be at less risk for the kinds of injuries that tend to only happen behind the plate – like when he fractured his forearm last year being hit by a swing. And it opens up at least the possibility of Contreras getting to 150 games, which would give him a huge edge on the rest of the players at this position, minus one or two. And Contreras' 150-game pace since getting to St. Louis looks like this: .263 average, 74 runs, 25 homers, 74 RBI, and seven steals. That feels like the floor if Contreras stays upright.
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Maybe the signing of Travis d'Arnaud doesn't really mean anything. He's a starter-caliber catcher masquerading as a backup, sure, and the Angels jumped the market to sign him, sure, but maybe it won't affect O'Hoppe's playing time – O'Hoppe was eighth among catchers in playing time last season. Or hey, maybe O'Hoppe is so good that even a 10% reduction in playing time wouldn't really impact O'Hoppe's price, which remains top-eight at the position in the month of January. After all, he has legitimate difference-making power for a catcher, as evidenced by all the red on his StatCast page under various batted-ball metrics. But O'Hoppe also has pretty scary plate discipline issues that could limit his upside, even with all that power. I don't think he's a terrible choice as your No. 1 catcher, but I can see too many ways this could go wrong to justify the cost.
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Catcher Top Prospects
1. Samuel Basallo, C, Orioles
Age (on opening day): 20
Where he played in 2024: Double-A, Triple-A
Minor-league stats: .278 BA (479 AB), 19 HR, 10 SB, .790 OPS, 46 BB, 112 K
Basallo's 2024 was a step back from his massive 2023 that saw him slash .313/.402/.551 across three levels, but the contact quality was still exemplary for a 19-year-old, allowing him to ascend to Triple-A by season's end. His bat is ahead of his glove, which may be for the best since he isn't displacing Adley Rutschman behind the plate. Catcher is no place to put a Yordan Alvarez-caliber masher anyway.
Scott's 2025 Fantasy impact: midseason hopeful
2. Dalton Rushing, C, Dodgers
Age (on opening day): 24
Where he played in 2024: Double-A, Triple-A
Minor-league stats: .271 BA (420 AB), 26 HR, .896 OPS, 64 BB, 103 K
There can be no rushing Rushing, not with Will Smith entrenched behind the plate for the Dodgers, and notably, the team began experimenting with the former second-rounder in left field late last season. A hybrid role, much like Daulton Varsho had to begin his career, may be in the offing unless Rushing is traded first, which might be the ideal scenario for Fantasy given Rushing's apparent readiness and the Dodgers' increasing reliance on veteran talent.
Scott's 2025 Fantasy impact: midseason hopeful
3. Kyle Teel, C, White Sox
Age (on opening day): 23
Where he played in 2024: Double-A, Triple-A
Minor-league stats: .288 BA (427 AB), 13 HR, 12 SB, .819 OPS, 68 BB, 116 K
Teel may not strike you as a Fantasy darling because he's lacking a standout tool, but the bar is so low at catcher that chasing the superstar outcome is often a waste of time and resources. Teel is so solid in every respect, including defense and bat control, that I could see him becoming a Fantasy standout due to sheer competence, basically following the J.T. Realmuto path to success.
Scott's 2025 Fantasy impact: midseason hopeful
4. Agustin Ramirez, C, Marlins
Age (on opening day): 23
Where he played in 2024: Double-A, Triple-A
Minor-league stats: .267 BA (476 AB), 25 HR, 22 SB, .845 OPS, 61 BB, 102 K
After an encouraging 2023, Ramirez solidified his prospect standing last year with big production in the upper levels and good process stats to back them up. The amount of contact he makes is impressive for how hard he impacts the ball, and he also knows how to work the count and even steal a base despite his underwhelming speed. The thought of him catching is a pipe dream, but he may start out there for the Marlins before transitioning elsewhere.
Scott's 2025 Fantasy impact: fighting this spring
5. Ethan Salas, C, Padres
Age (on opening day): 18
Where he played in 2024: High-A
Minor-league stats: .206 BA (412 AB), 4 HR, .599 OPS, 47 BB, 98 K
So much of the enthusiasm for Salas is built on him being outrageously young for his level of play, and if nothing else, it's a testament to his proficiency at the most demanding defensive position. But so far, defense is all I can confidently say he'll provide. The exit velocities are promising for his age and the contact rate is more than decent, but whether he can actually leverage those tools is anyone's guess, particularly with him being so obviously overmatched at his current level of play.
Scott's 2025 Fantasy impact: don't count on it
