Introducing the Zeplen Dean System: Catchers

Over the last several months, I have been writing about the going on's of the baseball season which has veered into players who are getting picked up in fantasy and why some players were better picks than others.

I'm in the early stages of looking at the numbers and using this to quantify which players are better than others. Slowly but surely, i'm building up a player database and using elements combining year to date with career factors with factors such as BABIP, Walk Rate, Runs per Plate Appearance, Home Runs per Plate appearance, etc. in these efforts. which produces a Raw Score w

The First position i've worked on is Catchers and the criteria I used for this list (which will build as the year progresses I realize this process is close from complete)

-75 or more hits

-5 or more home runs

-plus additional players that are getting added frequently.

For Catchers, there are only 11 that qualify under these so far (again I realize far from comprehensive) and broken down into the following tiers:

The Top Choice

1-Buster Posey (58.32)

The Next Best Options (>50)

2-Devin Mesoraco

3-Jonathan Lucroy

4-Miguel Montero

5-Brian McCann

Okay Options (45-49)

6-Salvador Perez

7-Yan Gomes

Stretching It (41-45)

8-Dioner Navarro

9-Wilson Ramos

10-Yadier Molina

You Can Definitely Do Better (<40)

11-Jason Castro

For the most part, this breakdown makes logical sense with a couple of exceptions.

Devin Mesoraco is ranked higher (#2) than I expected. I equalized the data to 650 plate appearances and the formula I have projects 37 home runs for him. This is telling me that I'm probably putting too much emphasis on current season data.

The other shocker is that Yadier Molina was ranked very low (#10 out of 11). In looking at the details, he got weighted down by career ISO which is one of the factors I used but wasn't counter weighed by the fact that he has developed more power over the last few seasons than he had from 2004-2010. 

Takeaways:

--Currently I appear to be overemphasizing this season's data especially as it pertains to someone with a limited sample size of career plate apperances

--I also think I may need to emphasize factors such as ISO over a shorter period (i.e. 3 years) as this is impacting the rankings of players such as Yadier Molina that have been around for a decade and have improved/evolved as hitters during this time frame.