Finding Value - Catchers

My best days at DFS baseball are always the days where I roster a cheap hitter and get a good, if not great game out of him.  These sorts of calls are hard to make independently.  There really is no valid strategic reason to start a Joey Butler over a Charlie Blackmon or Nelson Cruz, if you can afford the better player.  Most often, these situations occur when you are stuck finishing out the last spot on your roster: when your lack of remaining funds forces you to take a very cheap player.

For me, this usually occurs when choosing a Catcher.

This is the easiest and probably the best place to get a real feel for the idea of playing a less than stellar batter in hopes of having a positive outcome.  Catcher is the best place to start to understand this concept..

There are two main reasons:

• The very elite catchers just aren't very elite when compared to all hitters.

It is very rare that you can draft a Buster Posey at your Catcher spot and be happy with his production against his cost.  If you compare him to other players without considering the position, you'll find him often priced alongside very good, if not near elite players,  Today, for instance he's more expensive than Justin Upton (of course, Upton is facing Johnny Cueto) and the same price as Josh Reddick.  In virtually all situations, I would rather have one of the OF rather than Buster Posey (of course, today Posey faces Sean O'Sullivan and may make me eat my words today).  I'm not saying you should never play Posey, he's a mighty fine option if you happen to have enough funds left at the end of your roster; you just really should never target him.

It might be useful to see how the top catchers fared versus other players last year (These were chosen as the closest approximation using Draft Kings value, but Fan Duel Values are listed also).  The three catchers separated themselves from the catcher pack by at least one third of a point per game:

	Draft Kings	Fan Duel		Draft Kings	Fan Duel
Carlos Santana	1167	435.00	Alex Gordon -OF	1162	419.75
Jonathan Lucroy	1163	404.75	Howie Kendrick – 2B	1159	389.00
Buster Posey	1144	397.25	Lucas Duda – 1B	1135	420.50

All the hitters on right are good players, players I would have no issue fielding, but not superstars.  This demonstrates that whatever value you might be losing by passing on an top tier Catcher, can be made up at other positions rather easily.  Whereas if you grab Posey or Lucroy, it may make you move from $3000's level to $2000 level on other parts of your roster.  And just today, Draft Kings decided to no longer consider Carlos Santana a catcher.

• Because Catchers do not play every day, the back ups play at lower salary values.

The back up catcher gets more regular play than most backups as nearly all starting catchers take at least one day off a week.  This becomes one of the first things I look at when checking daily starting lineups. By playing only a day a week, they never move up too much in pricing, and are often found near the very bottom of the possible roster values.  However, unlike fill-ins at the other weak hitting position SS, many of these guys possess enough bat to get you the points you need.  Backup Catchers like Jose Lobaton, Cameron Rupp, or Wellington Castillo possess enough pop in their bat to nearly double their value with one swing.  Nearly all fill-ins bat near the bottom of the lineup, where the power skills are more beneficial than on base skills because the opportunity for RBI's outpaces the opportunity to score a Run. And the cost is so low, that even a zero from them doesn't sink you, as long as the savings you received are spent wisely.

Value is so important to DFS, and the catcher position is a good place to start understanding how the cheapest players in the game are crucial to your success in this endeavor.  Because your hand is often forced to consider these low cost options, you may learn strategies that can be applied to other positions, if you pay close enough attention.