Fantasy Baseball: How Long Can I Wait For a... Catcher?

New feature, folks! A good portion of drafts are done, but there's still a lot of folks who haven't yet. Personally, I advocate waiting as long as possible to draft, so you can see players emerge from Spring Training (and this year, the WBC). Plus, ST injuries can kill a squad.

Catchers are a mess once again this year. The top ones are going way too early, and people keep drafting Jason Kendall for some reason.

Victor Martinez is being drafted, on average, at #35 - mid 3rd round. That is simply WAY too early. Take Beltran. Take Berkman. PLEASE! Let's look at the numbers from last year and a projection for this year (projections from Rotochamps.com):

Martinez: 73/20/80/0/.305 - 81/23/89/0/.304
Beltran: 83/16/78/17/.266 - 106/30/93/30/.269
Berkman: 76/24/82/4/.293 - 96/30/97/5/.301

You can argue those projections for Beltran are high - but I see a definite improvement upon last year. They're still heads and shoulders above Martinez's numbers.

"But the difference between Martinez and the rest of the catchers makes up for that!" you say. I say you're wrong. Let's now focus our attention to the bottom of the draft, where you're taking your 3rd OF (unless you're smart and shored up all 3 OFers early, like I told you to a month ago), let's say around pick #150, and compare newcomer Kenji Johjima (149) with OFers Aaron Rowand (153) and Kevin Mench (157):

(Note: Johjima's Japanese numbers are unavailable to me at the moment, so we'll go with his Rotochamps.com projections):

Johjima: -/-/-/-/- - 82/21/69/3/.287
Rowand: 77/13/69/16/.270 - 88/16/76/18/.267
Mench: 71/16/78/4/.264 - 70/26/68/3/.276

And to throw out another C I've been heavily targeting the last month, Josh Willingham (also has numbers that are inconsequential from last year):

Willingham: -/-/-/-/- - 65/26/67/7/.259

So take a Catcher from Pool A and an OF from Pool B, or an OF from Pool A and a Catcher from Pool B, and see what the difference is. You're a smart kid, you can do the math.

Final Advice: Varitek isn't being drafted at value. He's usually being picked when I'm strapped for an RP, so I don't get him - but if he's available in Rd. 10, nab him. If Johjima last until Rd. 14, take him. And if you want to look like the smartest owner, wait until the final 3 rounds to take Willingham. He'll be playing 1B or the OF, but has C eligibility.