2026 Fantasy Baseball Catcher Preview: Sleepers, breakouts, busts, ranking the top 12 and more
A complete position breakdown on what you need to know before you draft
By
Chris Towers
•
5 min read
If you've been playing Fantasy Baseball long enough – like, say, longer than one year – you know the drill with catcher. It's the worst position in Fantasy every year, full of has-beens and never-weres, a position that tends to have both the highest bust rate among prospects and the shortest peaks for the players who do actually work out.
And none of that was true in 2025. As I wrote earlier in the offseason, the number of truly useful Fantasy options at the catcher position is higher than it's been in a long time. Here's how many players at catcher were worth at least $15 by FanGraphs.com's Player Rater over the past five seasons:
- 2025: 8
- 2024: 5
- 2023: 2
- 2022: 3
- 2021: 4
Here's how many were worth at least $10:
- 2025: 13
- 2024: 8
- 2023: 5
- 2022: 3
- 2021: 5
And that isn't counting names like Willson Contreras or Ivan Herrera, who were must-start catchers last season but didn't retain eligibility for 2026. It also isn't counting late-season call-ups like Samuel Basallo or Carter Jensen, who we expect to be pretty useful for 2026. All told, I think we're looking at a situation where there might be 16 or more catchers I would be fine with as my starter in a one-catcher league. Which means there are multiple very exciting options available for your No. 2 spot, too.
This is unprecedented stuff. Which means it might not last. In fact, given the attrition of the catcher position historically, I'd bet on things ending up slightly less rosy than we think by the time the season ends. Which players will be the cause of that? That's unknowable right now, though I'd bet on Cal Raleigh, Will Smith, Alejandro Kirk, and at least one of Ben Rice, Hunter Goodman, or Shea Langeliers being worse in 2026 than they were in 2025. I wouldn't be surprised if we reach the end of this season and have given up on Adley Rutschman ever becoming an impact bat – and Basallo might be less ready to replace him in the heart of the Orioles' lineup than we hope. And there's a very real chance Agustin Ramirez just doesn't play catcher enough to retain eligibility for 2027 and beyond.
Of course, there will surely be some unexpected breakouts here, too. Maybe Kyle Teel unlocks a level we didn't expect after a merely solid rookie season; maybe Gabriel Moreno takes a big step forward as a power source and emerges as a top-10 option; maybe Francisco Alvarez's big second half was a harbinger of stardom to come. I could certainly see any of those examples happening to help remake the position.
The point is, catcher hasn't had this many viable options in a long time, and while there's risk of some across-the-board regression, the specific makeup of this year's catcher crop – a lot of very interesting young options, more than enough to cover a 12-team, one-catcher league, at least – makes me more optimistic than I've been in a long time about the position. In a two-catcher league – and especially in a 15-team league – there will still be some pretty unappetizing options littering the starting lineups of those teams who choose to wait at the position. I'm not saying catcher is so deep that you can just choose someone useful from the waiver wire in a two-catcher league.
But where in years past we might have ranked the likes of Dillon Dingler or Austin Wells as fringe top-12 choices, both are more like low-end No. 2 catchers this season. Even if there are disappointments on the way, I think it's clear catcher is in a rare position of strength. Here's what that looks like:
Consensus Top 12
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There's going to be regression. That's just how this works. The question is, does that regression look like 45-plus homers and the clear No. 1 catcher again? Or does Raleigh turn back into more of a 30-35 homer guy like he was prior to 2025? The good news is, it's unlikely you'll get a bad season from Raleigh – he hasn't finished worse than fifth since 2022 (and even then, he was 11th). But at a second-round price tag, even a homer total in the high-30s is likely to leave you pretty disappointed, and Raleigh's second-best career total is 34.
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There will be drafts where Contreras is the third or fourth catcher taken. I can't abide that. Yes, there are other players at the position with plenty of upside, but I think some folks might be underrating Contreras' upside. He probably won't hit 30 homers in 2026, but he might hit 25, and he might do it with a .300 average, 100 runs and RBI, and a non-zero steals total. I don't think he can match the upside Raleigh showed in 2025, but I don't think anyone else at the position realistically has either a higher floor or ceiling than Contreras.
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Goodman has his skeptics. I get it. It's only a one-year sample size of this kind of production in the majors, and it came with a 35-point gap between his actual wOBA and his expected wOBA. But then there's this: He actually showed a very similar skill set in 2024, hitting 13 homers in just 224 PA, but a .199 BABIP made it untenable to rely on him for Fantasy. But he was a good hitter in the minors, and Coors Field helped cover up for his batting average risk in 2025 in a way I mostly believe. Even if he's more like a .250 hitter moving forward, Goodman's power and run production numbers should continue to stand out among catchers.
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Rice is everyone's favorite breakout, though I imagine the heat is going to get turned down a bit in drafts after the signing of Paul Goldschmidt as a potential platoon for at least the toughest lefties on the schedule. Rice should still have a playing time edge on most other catchers and might end up being one of the two or three best hitters at the position. But it requires some projection to get him there, and the presence of Goldschmidt does make the path to 600-plus plate appearances a bit tougher to navigate. The ceiling here is extremely high, and the floor isn't bad either, but I think the arguments for him as the No. 2 catcher off the board – a position he held for much of the past month and a half or so in drafts – are harder to make now.
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Langeliers has a couple of things going against him: First of all, he overperformed his expected wOBA by 36 points, one of the biggest marks in the league; and then there was the backloaded nature of his production, with 20 of his 31 homers coming from July through September. He had a .709 OPS through the first half of the season and was looking like a pretty big disappointment before locking in for the second half. His home park should continue to help him outperform expectations, and his overall production doesn't seem too unsustainable in that light, but I do think there are enough question marks here to slot him last among this tier at the position.
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Ramirez was always a rare "better in Fantasy than real life" prospect at catcher because of questions about his glove, but for our purposes (at least for 2026), we couldn't care less about his defense. The Marlins have enough catching depth that Ramirez should be able to spend pretty much every day serving as the team's DH, and that means we could realistically see a 25-20 season from Ramirez. He hits the ball plenty hard for that kind of power production, and I'd certainly take the over on his .231 batting average as a rookie – his xBA was .259. The biggest question is probably around the speed – can he really be a 20-plus steal guy while ranking in the 31st percentile in sprint speed? Well, he went 16 for 19 in 136 games in his rookie season and had 14 (on 15 attempts!) in just 87 games at Triple-A, so I'd say he's capable. That kind of out-of-position speed is what made JT Realmuto the top option at the position, and Ramirez has that kind of upside (at least until he loses catcher eligibility, which may happen as soon as next season).
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If you just took what players did at face value in 2025, it's hard to argue against Perez as a top-six option even at the stacked catcher position. The problem, of course, is that he's going to turn 36 in the first quarter of the season, and the bottom may fall out at any minute. There's real risk here, but signs of decline have been hard to find, too – Perez's .357 xwOBA was right in line with where he was in 2024 and up from 2022 and 2023. He still hits the ball hard and makes plenty of contact, and while his lack of athleticism might make it tough for Perez to live up to those expected numbers, the new, more hitter-friendly dimensions at Kauffman Stadium shouldn't hurt. Perez might give you identical production to Langeliers at a four-round discount in drafts.
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On a rate basis, Smith is probably one of the two or three best hitters at the position, but I think we've probably reached the point where he's a better player in real life than Fantasy. Because of Shohei Ohtani's presence, Smith doesn't get DH reps anymore, putting him at a severe disadvantage when it comes to playing time, at least relative to the high-end options at the position. Which is how you get a situation where he hit .296 (his best mark ever) with a .901 OPS (second at the position), but was still just the seventh-best option at the position in 2025. I think we just saw the ceiling outcome here, and it wasn't that impressive, making Smith more of a high-floor choice.
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Take the over on Baldwin's 446 plate appearances, which means we're taking the over on his production across the board. Sean Murphy looks like he'll be out until at least May, recovering from hip surgery, and who knows if he'll even be good enough to justify an even playing time split when he does return. Even if he does, the Braves have left the DH spot relatively wide open, so the Braves could pretty easily have both Murphy and Baldwin in the lineup if they need to. Baldwin was a standout as a rookie in ways that both his minor-league track record and underlying metrics back up, making a big step forward in Year 2 look like a pretty easy bet to make.
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This time a year ago, Diaz was the trendy young catcher everyone was pushing up their draft boards. That didn't work out, but I'm not sure anything about Diaz's skill set actually changed between now and then. He still makes a lot of contact, but that high-contact skill set comes along with an extremely aggressive approach at the plate that leaves him seemingly more prone to long slumps than your typical hitter. But it seems like the biggest difference between 2024 and 2025 for Diaz was that he went from a .338 BABIP to just a .277 mark – his power was actually better in 2025, and his underlying metrics were mostly in line. Maybe expecting him to hit .300 every year was a mistake, but could he get back to at least a .280 average and 20-plus homers? I'm counting on it, honestly.
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Honestly, I don't know where we stand with Rutschman. He has dealt with a number of injuries over the past year and a half, which might explain why he has struggled so much. But it's also worth noting that he has been a well below average hitter since the end of June, 2024, even by the relatively meager standards of this position. The one bright spot in 2025 was a relatively brief stretch last summer, but oblique injuries derailed his second half before we could see if he was truly starting to figure it out again. He'll still be worth drafting as a low-end No. 1 catcher because of the upside he once showed, but if he gets off to a slow start in 2026, don't be afraid to just cut him in one-catcher leagues, at least.
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Moreno might have already had his breakout in 2025, as his .285/.353/.433 line was by far his best as a major-leaguer, with underlying numbers to suggest he might have deserved even better. He's always had a great approach at the plate and solid raw power, but his inability to elevate the ball consistently held him back. In 2025, his rate of batted balls in the air increased from 50.4% in 2024 to 60.6%. Moreno probably doesn't have the upside to challenge for the top spot at the position, but could we get a .280 average and 15-20 homers out of him? I think that's in the range of possibility, and his contact skills and OBP could make him a solid contributor in runs and RBI, too.
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Don't Forget About ...
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This is a literal "Don't forget about him …" call, because Herrera opens the season without catcher eligibility. Elbow injuries limited him behind the plate in 2025, but he had surgery to remove bone spurs and is expected to be part of the team's catcher situation. We'd prefer him to get the five or 10 appearances he needs behind the plate to gain eligibility as quickly as possible and then settle in as a more or less full-time DH for the Cardinals. But the thing about Herrera is, he might just be a good enough hitter to matter even if he never gains that little "C" beside his name. He's coming off a season where he hit .284/.373/.464 with 19 homers in just 107 games, with the underlying numbers to back it up. He might have 30-homer upside as a full-time bat if he can stay healthy, and limiting his exposure behind the plate wouldn't be a bad way to keep him healthy. Of course … we'd sure like to get that little "C" beside his name sooner rather than later.
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Like Moreno, we might have already seen the breakout from Alvarez in 2025. He was bad enough to earn a demotion back to Triple-A in late June, and I think a lot of people just stopped paying attention and wrote him off as another failed top prospect. But he went down to Triple-A and hit 12 homers in 26 games, then returned to the majors and hit .276/.360/.561 with eight homers in just about two months worth of games. He cut his strikeout rate to a manageable 25.2%, while his average exit velocity jumped to 93.4 mph. It's only two months, but it was the first time Alvarez really looked like the guy we always hoped he could, and that guy has as much upside as basically anyone at the position. As long as all it costs is a No. 2 catcher spot, I'm willing to bet he figured something out.
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It's easy for Teel to get kind of lost in the shuffle, what with so many interesting young catchers emerging in the past year or so. He doesn't necessarily have the hitting chops of Rice or Langeliers, nor the all-around potential of someone like Ramirez, which is why he's been relegated to the No. 2 catcher range. But he's a top prospect in his own right, with an advanced approach at the plate and some mild five-category upside – in 128 games between the majors and minors last season, we got 16 homers and 10 steals out of him, for example. There's some "poor man's JT Realmuto" appeal here, and since he figures to split DH and catcher duties with Edgar Quero, there should be plenty of playing time upside here. He might only have top-10-ish upside, but his price makes that a fine outcome.
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After he hit .300/.391/.550 in a 20-game cup-of-coffee last season, Jensen is rightly a popular breakout pick. And I'm mostly on board. I don't necessarily think he's going to be the batting average standout he looked like in 2025 (he also hit .290 across Double-A and Triple-A), but I think the power is legitimate, and playing time should be easier to come by than you think with Salvador Perez likely to shift more to playing DH. I think Jensen's extremely passive approach at the plate is going to lead to a higher strikeout rate than we saw in the majors (he was at 28% in Triple-A), and with a swing geared toward maximizing power, there will be some batting average sacrifices. But he hits the ball extremely hard (93.4 mph average exit velocity in Triple-A), and has the kind of bat that should play even as a part-time DH. A 2025 Shea Langeliers-esque outcome is well within the range of possibility.
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Realmuto is no longer the class of the position. He's been surpassed. It happens. What we want to make sure doesn't happen is that he becomes underrated as a result. Realmuto won't give you a 20-20 season with best-in-position run production numbers, but you know what? 12 homers and eight steals still has plenty of value, and his underlying metrics suggest he's still one of the better athletes at the position – he was in the 76th percentile among all players in sprint speed, while his quality of contact remains solidly above average. Could he push his numbers back up to, say, 15 homers and 10 steals this season? I really wouldn't be surprised.
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Sleeper
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Ford has been a top prospect for a pretty long time and hasn't quite developed into the sure-fire difference maker many hoped for. And his profile for Fantasy took an especially big hit in 2025 as he stole just seven bases in 97 games at Triple-A. That puts a lot more pressure on the bat to play up, and things are kind of fringe-y, there – he makes good swing decisions, but the raw power and contact skills are more average than great, and the hit tool could play down against MLB pitching. But if he can get back to being a 20-plus steal guy like he was prior to last season, there's still a lot to get excited about here. Even if it's more like a 15-15 outcome, Ford could play his way into the No. 2 catcher discussion if it looks like he's coming out of Spring Training as the Nationals' top choice behind the plate.
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Breakout
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Basallo isn't my top breakout pick at catcher – Rice, Herrera, and Alvarez all seem like better bets – but Basallo absolutely has that difference-making kind of upside. He just might be a bit further from realizing it than some of those other names. Which is fine, as Basallo is still just 21, about nine months younger than the two catchers the Orioles took with their first two picks in last year's MLB Draft. He's already made the majors, and he did that after dominating at Triple-A in 2025, with a 151 wRC+ that ranked third among all players. And, again, he was 20 for much of the 2025 season. He's being discounted for his struggles in the majors last season, which is fair. But he might have top-of-position upside, and it doesn't really feel like that is being priced in, either. He's an ideal No. 2 catcher target.
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Bust
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I guess I just don't get the appeal here? Kirk is coming off a career-best season that saw him hit … 15 homers with 121 combined runs and RBI? Really, that's all? Sure, he hit .282, but don't you need more than that to be a top-12 option at catcher, especially this year? In theory, Kirk's skill set should at least make him a solid bet for batting average, but even there, he hit just .251 between 2023 and 2024, so you can't even say that. It's reasonable to hope for a useful batting average from Kirk, but he was just 16th in homers, sixth in RBI, and 19th in runs among catchers in 2025. He's a decent enough fallback option, but I don't see much reason to push a decent fallback option into the top 12 at this point at this position.
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2026 Draft Prep
Catcher Top Prospects
1. Samuel Basallo, C, Orioles
Age (on opening day): 21
Where he played in 2025: Triple-A, majors
Minor league stats: .270 BA (270 AB), 23 HR, .966 OPS, 44 BB, 76 K
Major league stats: .165 BA (109 AB), 4 HR, .559 OPS, 6 BB, 30 K
While the Orioles have a franchise catcher in Adley Rutschman, Basallo's bat is good enough to occupy either first base or DH, with a long-term deal already in place to give him the inside track. A Kyle Schwarber-like outcome would seem to be on the table, judging by his prodigious exit velocity readings at Triple-A (94.2 mph average and 115.9 mph max).
Scott's 2026 Fantasy impact: pencil him in
2. Carter Jensen, C, Royals
Age (on opening day): 22
Where he played in 2025: Double-A, Triple-A, majors
Minor league stats: .290 BA (427 AB), 20 HR, 10 SB, .878 OPS, 60 BB, 122 K
Major league stats: .300 BA (60 AB), 3 HR, .941 OPS, 9 BB, 12 K
The Royals have found their heir to Salvador Perez in Jensen, who arrived in September with a 95.4 mph average exit velocity and 13 percent walk rate. The Triple-A numbers weren't far off, making for a possible superstar outcome and likely ensuring Perez spends even more of his time at DH this year.
Scott's 2026 Fantasy impact: pencil him in
3. Josue Briceno, C, Tigers
Age (on opening day): 21
Where he played in 2025: High-A, Double-A
Minor league stats: .266 BA (364 AB), 20 HR, .883 OPS, 66 BB, 87 K
Briceno set the Arizona Fall League on fire two years ago and went on to deliver a .296/.422/.602 slash line in 55 games at High-A last year. He finally hit a wall at Double-A, dragging down his full-season numbers, but even there, he demonstrated the sort of plate discipline and exit velocity readings that are sure to move him off catcher so that he can reach the big leagues sooner.
Scott's 2026 Fantasy impact: midseason hopeful
4. Moises Ballesteros, C, Cubs
Age (on opening day): 22
Where he played in 2025: Triple-A, majors
Minor league stats: .316 BA (446 AB), 13 HR, 29 2B, .858 OPS, 49 BB, 67 K
Major league stats: .298 BA (57 AB), 2 HR, 2 2B, .868 OPS, 9 BB, 12 K
Ballesteros' short and stout build makes catcher his only viable path defensively, and he's blocked twice over there for the Cubs, which you might think is a deal-breaker in the short-term. The Cubs value his bat so much, though, that they're prepared to hand over DH duties to him, perhaps with the occasional start at catcher. His swing is geared more for average than power, but he impacts the ball well enough to deliver both.
Scott's 2026 Fantasy impact: pencil him in
5. Rainiel Rodriguez, C, Cardinals
Age (on opening day): 19
Where he played in 2025: Rookie, Low-A, High-A
Minor league stats: .276 BA (301 AB), 20 HR, .954 OPS, 54 BB, 65 K
Rodriguez knows the difference between balls and strikes, excels at elevating to his pull side, and has hit a ball as hard as 111 mph, and he only turned 19 in the offseason. Given the skills he's flashing at such a young age, he's on track to be the game's top catching prospect someday.
Scott's 2026 Fantasy impact: don't count on it
