Recently there has been some debate around the value of taking J.T. Realmuto around pick 50, and what the value of that might be. I will note every drafter may have their own strategy around why they feel its a good idea, or why it is bad. What I am going to present to you, is some reasoning around why taking catchers early in 2 catcher format is something you should consider.
To understand the value of the top 4 catchers(Realmuto, Sanchez, Grandal, and Garver), I wanted to compare them to the players going right before or after them to understand their value relative to those being drafter around them. I also compared them to the first 4 catchers going after the 200th pick.
Before we talk about my findings, I will note that all the numbers that I worked with were based on ATC projections and the ADP values on January 24th, 2020. I will also note that because I only compared each catcher to 2 other players that there is going to be variance. My findings were that yes Realmuto at his current NFBC ADP(pick 54) is bad value. He is about 11% less valuable than the player going before him(Ketel Marte), and the player after him(Vladimir Guerrero Jr.) When we look at the next 3 catchers in ADP rank(Sanchez, Grandal, and Garver), their values were first also bad in comparison to those being drafted before and after them, but worse than Realmuto’s values.
Gary Sanchez was found to be about 20% less valuable.
Yasmani Grandal was found to be about 18% less valuable.
Mitch Garver was found to be about 35% less valuable.
When we look at the players going after pick 200, we see similar results.
Carson Kelly was found to be about 35% less valuable.
Omar Narvaez was found to be about 41% less valuable.
Jorge Alfaro was found to be about 34% less valuable.
Sean Murphy was found to be about 38% less valuable.
So there is some reason to believe that you will get better gains for your club by targetting Realmuto, and Grandal, largely because of how much closer to the value of their peers than the other catchers I looked at. Meaning, you should get greater value for your team by not taking a catcher after the 200th pick then you will lose by taking Realmuto, Sanchez or Grandal.
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