by Eric Stashin (aka The Rotoprofessor)

When making the change from AVG to OBP, there are always players who benefit and those who see their value take a hit.  Which catchers look more valuable when utilizing OBP?  Who drops down our rankings?  Let’s take a look:

1) Buster Posey – San Francisco Giants
2) Kyle Schwarber – Chicago Cubs
3) Russell Martin – Toronto Blue Jays
4) Jonathan Lucroy – Milwaukee Brewers
5) Brian McCann – New York Yankees
6) Matt Wieters – Baltimore Orioles
7) Salvador Perez – Kansas City Royals
8) Yasmani Grandal – Los Angeles Dodgers
9) J.T. Realmuto – Miami Marlins
10) Travis d’Arnaud – New York Mets
11) Derek Norris – San Diego Padres
12) Welington Castillo – Arizona Diamondbacks
13) Devin Mesoraco – Cincinnati Reds
14) Blake Swihart – Boston Red Sox
15) Stephen Vogt – Oakland A’s

Thoughts:

• One of the biggest risers when we look at OBP is Russell Martin, who jumps into the Top 3. It shouldn’t be a surprise that he showed the power, playing half his games in Toronto, and he’s also consistently shown an ability to draw walks. He owns a career .352 OBP and has posted a walk rate above 10.5% every year since his 2006 rookie campaign (when he was at 9.6%).
• It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Salvador Perez’ value drops when we are looking at OBP instead of average. Sure he has the potential to hit for a strong average, but a 2.4% walk rate in ’15 (3.5% in his Major League career) gives him no chance of posting a strong OBP (.289 and .280 over the past two seasons). Despite the upside it’s going to cap his value.
• Yasmani Grandal certainly sees an increase in value thanks to his ability to draw a walk. We all know he has power (31 HR over the past two seasons), but he also owns a .351 career OBP (.353 last season) thanks to a 14.3% walk rate. While he may not post the RBI/R that other catchers are capable of, he’s the top of the next tier thanks to his potentially elite OBP for the position.
• We talked about Welington Castillo as a potential sleeper before, which you can read by clicking here.

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