Roto Value Trend: Catchers in 2010

The first installment in our series discussing the value at each position in the draft looks at the always boring Catcher position.  The chart above displays how valuable the players being chosen at various points in the draft are.  The value is tied to the statistics from various projection systems using our WERTH points system based on a standard 12 team roto league.  The draft rounds are based on ADP data from MockDraftCentral and are rounds based on 12 team leagues.  These charts are meant to show the value of various positions throughout the draft in order for you to determine when to target a starter or backup.

There are three catchers who might be drafted early in drafts and then all falls silent until roughly Round 10.  From Round 10 to 16, catchers will fall off the board and most of them will provide roughly the same value. In that area there are some more volatile picks such as Russell Martin getting some positive projections in Round 13 and Bengie Molina getting a surprisingly wide variety of projections in Round 14.  In Round 16, Marcel seems to like Mike Napoli but then things return to yawnfully boring after that as the final draftable catchers go off the board in Ryan Doumit, Yadier Molina, Miguel Olivo and A.J. Pierzynski.  From that point on, it's a pathetic group of guys who do next to nothing offensively.

Conclusion: If you're not targeting a catcher within the first five rounds then feel free to ignore catchers until the final rounds.  The value of grabbing a catcher in Round 10 is not much different than waiting until Round 21 or 22.  So, use that 10th Round pick for more vital starting positions in your lineup or even high quality backups to your other starters.

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