Monday, March 06, 2006

NL C $$$ Range

$30+ LOL
$23+ lol
$17+ Josh Willingham

$13+ Michael Barrett, Jason LaRue, Mike Piazza

$7+ Brian McCann, Pual LoDuca, Mike Lieberthal, Brian Schneider, Yadier Molina, Jose Valentin, Damian Miller, Johnny Estrada, Mike Matheny, Dioner Navarro

<$6 Miguel Olivo, Brad Ausmus, Humberto Cota, Ryan Doumit, Chris Snyder, Yorvit Torrealba, JD Closser, Danny Androin, Doug Mirabelli, Ramon Castro, Sal Fasano, Todd Pratt

I have covered NL catchers twice previously (here and here). The first thing to be jibed with my previous posts and this one are the presence of players valued at greater than $12.

Simply, inflation and relative valuations against their peers will take these players higher, and Josh Willingham will go the highest because he will play LF but qualify at catcher. The sabremetricians gush over him and that school of thought is predominant in fantasy baseball (and real baseball) right now.

I also note that Ron Schandler of Baseball HQ loves Michael Barrett. His colleagues also helped ESPN the Magazine write their fantasy issue and, in it, Barrett receives the same love. With ESPN incapable of separating their news function from hocking their branded products, this should be all over their various media outlets for the next month

Those aside, I do not see much difference between the top and bottom of the starting catchers and can see a strategy of $19 on Willingham and a $1 on Fasano out-producing a combo of two players in the $7 range.

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