2011 Catchers Projections

Well here we go with the first ranking of the 2011 season! Let’s start it off with the catchers:

1.) Joe Mauer – Minnesota Twins
Still the best catcher available. For Mauer owners, Justin Morneau should be good for the beginning of the season. This will certainly raise Mauer’s numbers.

2.) Victor Martinez – Detroit Tigers
It will be interesting to see what happens to Victor’s numbers at Comerica Park, a ballpark which has not been kind to the catcher in the past few years. Still, he has proved to be a great hitter for years now and with some power around him, Martinez should have a nice average and RBI total.

3.) Buster Posey – San Francisco Giants
Very rarely does a player live up the hype created before his rookie season, but Posey did just that. In 108 games, Buster hit .305 with 18 homers and 67 RBI for the World Series champion San Francisco Giants (that still does not sound right).

4.) Brian McCann – Atlanta Braves
McCann is a hitting catcher. He should have plenty of opportunities to drive Braves in. With Prado coming back healthy and the addition of Dan Uggla from the Marlins, this could be one very entertaining offense to watch this year.

5.) Carlos Santana – Cleveland Indians
“Smooth” only played in 45 games last season before injuring his left knee. In those games, the rookie only hit .260 but did have six homers and 22 RBI. Let’s face it, if Santana was on a good team that had runners on base all the time, those RBI numbers would be up. This is the issue you will run into with the Indians’ catcher…he plays on the Indians. Having said that, he is a guy you will want to keep an eye on and grab before someone else does.

6.) Kurt Suzuki – Oakland Athletics
I am not really sure why but when the top catchers are discussed, Suzuki’s name never gets mentioned. The A’s catcher hit only .242 but did hit 13 homers and drove in 71.

7.) Matt Wieters – Baltimore Orioles
Wieters has not lived up to expectations yet, but that is because he was projected to become the top catcher in all of baseball. His .268 isn’t good, but come on, he is a catcher! He did pop 14 home runs and 70 RBI last year on a pretty pathetic Orioles team. Now that Baltimore has added a few more hitters with Vladimir Guerro and Derek Lee, don’t forget about this guy. This will give him more base runners to knock in.

8.) Miguel Montero – Arizona Diamondbacks
Montero had a nice start to his 2010 season until an injury forced him to miss most of the balance of the season. In 85 games Miguel hit .266 with nine homers and 43 RBI. Now that he is healthy, it is likely he will come closer to his 2009 numbers when he hit .294, which is very good for a catcher.


9.) Geovany Soto – Chicago Cubs
Soto had a comeback year in 2010. The Cubs’ catcher hit .280 with 17 homers and 53 RBI. These are certainly some stats that you can live with from a catcher. So you might be wondering why he is ranked so low then. Well the reason is because we just don’t know if he will be 2010 Soto or the 2009 Soto that hit .218 and was benched for quite a few games because of his awful play. He is worth the chance of a late round pick

10.) Jorge Posada – New York Yankees
Let’s just say it right now; if you are still looking for a catcher, are you really expecting a lot? Probably not and you really shouldn’t be. More than likely you will be picking up whoever is hot and dropping the catcher you had from the previous week. Wait, I am supposed to support the pick of Posada right now. Well, he is on the Yankees and will have fellow Yanks on the bags when he is up to the dish. He should be DHing a lot more this season which should help save those old knees...SOLD!