Today, we price the catchers. If you don’t have one of these guys, every pitch goes to the backstop.

I’m generally not going to go after a big-name guy unless the room pushes a friendly price, but I’ll try to stay open minded to that possibility.

Some of these guys will qualify at non-catcher positions, but I will not shuffle them there, since their highest utility will come as catchers. I’ll add commentary later on Saturday.

The usual disclaimers:

To some in the fantasy community, rankings are a dirty concept. Some people don’t like tiers so much, either. I don’t know, but I think you need some rough sketch of how you feel about a player pool. Just understand this is a sketch, in pencil. And I’m always going to be ready to pivot in the middle of a draft or auction — and later drafts and auctions this spring will help me determine just how I feel about the player pool.

[Positional Rankings: Top 300 Overall | C | 1B | 2B | SS | 3B | OF | P ]

The prices are unscientific, and meant to illustrate how I feel about the pockets of value and the differences between players. Players at the same price are considered even. I might tweak this list within the first day or so of publishing. Assuming a 5×5 scoring format, as usual.

I welcome your intelligent and respectful disagreement. It’s a game of opinions. And if I missed a corner-eligible asset who is draft-worthy, let me know that, too. Yahoo has the easiest positional tags earned, which I view as a feature, not a bug.

The Vanity Catchers

$22 J.T. Realmuto
$21 Gary Sanchez

We hopped into the Realmuto case when the trade went down. The park switch is a major asset, and while he might move down in the order with Philadelphia, the guys around him are a major plus . . . There’s no point to deep dive into Sanchez’s 2018 stats, he was hurt most of the year. Don’t blame the shift for his slump; Sanchez hit 109 points higher against the shift.

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The Proactive Picks

$17 Yasmani Grandal
$16 Salvador Perez
$14 Yadier Molina
$13 Wilson Ramos
$13 Willson Contreras
$12 Buster Posey

Grandal also gets a park adjustment — while Chavez Ravine is outstanding for left-handed power (Grandal is a switch-hitter), Milwaukee is seven percent better . . . Take Perez down a few pegs in OBP formats, but the Royals will run him out for a heavy workload and he’s been an All-Star six straight years. This is a sturdy floor . . . Molina has been the No. 2, No. 2, and No. 5 catcher the past three years, but he generally won’t cost that, as most rooms are worried about being early to the cliff season. What Molina has lost in physical ability, he’s likely gained back in experience and guile. And heck, his best two-year power run is what we saw the last two years.

At Least You’re Not Punting

$10 Danny Jansen
$9 Welington Castillo
$8 Yan Gomes
$7 Francisco Cervelli
$6 Jorge Alfaro
$6 Robinson Chirinos
$6 Willians Astudillo
$6 Tucker Barnhart
$6 Austin Hedges
$6 Kurt Suzuki
$6 Austin Barnes

We’re contractually obligated to point out Alfaro’s .405 BABIP over 467 at-bats. Now he heads to the worst hitter park in the majors, and there’s seaweed flanking him in the lineup . . . I like Chirinos as a cheap second catcher because I like to bet where Houston is betting. Then again, he is entering his age-35 season and his OPS+ was 97 last year, so I’m not getting into a wrestling match over him. Look for about 15 homers and an average around .235; again, that plays if you need two starters . . .Cervelli and Barnhart are both reasonable plays if you want a show-up guy without a lot of power upside . . . Astudillo looked like one of those fun faux-catchers, but now that Marwin Gonzalez is with Minnesota, it’s difficult to find 450 at-bats for Astudillo. He is a fun player, though — he never walks (2.1 percent), he never strikes out (3.1 percent), and he hit line drives 23.1 percent of the time last year. You want balls in play, he’ll do that.

Maybe You’ll Get Lucky

$5 Mike Zunino
$5 Francisco Mejia
$5 Isiah Kiner-Falefa
$5 Chris Iannetta
$4 Omar Narvaez
$4 John Hicks
$4 Mitch Garver
$4 Brian McCann
$3 Elias Diaz
$3 Tyler Flowers

Hicks would double in value if Miguel Cabrera got hurt . . . Falefa is willing to run, albeit it’s come with a messy success rate. And he has several ways to get on the field in Texas . . . Throw out the .251 average Zunino posted two years ago; he’s at .207 for his career, and batted .201 last year. Do you need his 20 homers that badly? The Mendoza Line is now the Zunino Line.

Bargain Bin

$2 Jonathan Lucroy
$2 Kevin Plawecki
$2 Chance Sisco
$2 Travis d’Arnaud
$2 Alex Avila
$1 Carson Kelly
$1 Manny Pina
$1 Russell Martin
$1 Max Stassi
$1 Jason Castro
$1 Nick Hundley
$1 Curt Casali
$1 Devin Mesoraco
$1 Stephen Vogt
$1 Blake Swihart
$1 Sandy Leon
$0 Matt Wieters

The Yahoo Fantasy Baseball Podcast is coming…