Fantasy Baseball 2019: J.T. Realmuto is your clear No. 1 catcher
After an offseason of rumors, catcher J.T. Realmuto was traded from the Miami Marlins to the Philadelphia Phillies on Thursday. He is coming off his best overall season in 2018, as he slash-lined .277/.340/.484 with 21 home run, 74 RBI and 74 runs scored, and now he’ll join a better lineup in a more hitter-friendly home park.
Realmuto’s career home/road splits are dramatic. His batting average is 64 points higher (.309) than at home at Marlins Park (.245), with an OPS 170 points higher on the road (.848). His career sample size at Philadelphia’s Citizen’s Bank Park (109 plate appearances, 28 games-25 starts) is just big enough to take something from, with a career slash-line of .282/.312/.476 with four home runs and 13 RBI.
Realmuto did fade after the All-Star break last year, hitting just .232 with a .721 OPS after hitting .310 with a .902 OPS before the break. But until proven otherwise that should just been seen as a blip, since he’s been a top-five fantasy catcher in three straight years.
Realmuto primarily hit third for Miami last year (311 plate appearances), with a healthy chunk (154 plate appearances) in the No. 2 spot. He should hit somewhere toward the top of a Phillies’ lineup that includes now includes Andrew McCutchen and Jean Segura, to go with Rhys Hoskins, so any envisioned erosion in RBI opportunities from not hitting in the No. 3 spot stands to be offset by a spike in runs scored and a likely increase in pure opportunity volume.
Depending on your ADP source (h/t to Fantasy Pros), Realmuto is either the No. 1 or No. 2 catcher going off the board between 55th (NFBC) and 71st (Fantrax) overall. Gary Sanchez is marginally higher in the average of the ADP of multiple sites, with an average ADP of 59.4 compared 61.0 for Realmuto. The range of outcomes, and thus the risk, feels far higher with Sanchez.
I generally like to think of catchers in fantasy baseball the same way I think of tight ends in fantasy football, in that waiting to draft one (and only one) if you don’t get one of the top options is good strategy since there isn’t a big gap between them after a certain point.
Position scarcity says drafting Realmuto is plenty worthwhile, as he and Sanchez are clearly the top two catchers before a significant drop-off, and his ADP could very well climb now. If you were going to draft him, that plan surely came with the expectation of a trade that has finally come.
Realmuto may push into territory where he’s not worth drafting over someone at a deeper position, but there’s room for upside (30 home runs?) in my projection if you’re willing to go all-in. In any case, Realmuto should now leave Sanchez in his wake as the first catcher off the board in fantasy drafts this year.
J.T. Realmuto 2019 Projection: .285/.350/.490, 27 HR, 80 RBI, 85 runs scored, 5 SB
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