Risers & Fallers: Catcher Production, Shota Imanaga and More

​

  • By Anthony Kates

    Last Updated on July 3, 2025 9:37 pm by Anthony Kates | Published: May 3, 2024

    New Friday, new month, new risers and fallers. We’re going to talk a bit about the rising production from the catcher’s position, Shota Imanaga, NL Cy Young? and Cam Collier’s explosive start in A+. On the faller’s side, we’ll talk about another injury for Mike Trout, Spencer Torkelson’s terrible, horrible, no-good start to 2024, and whether or not the end is finally here for Paul Goldschmidt.

    RISERS

    After the first four or five selections, catcher normally becomes an afterthought in most fantasy leagues (unless you have to start two and then you get very serious and learn the name of every starter and backup and which prospects could come up and wait who’s the 26-year-old guy in AA killing it right now…you get the idea). In standard 5×5 head-to-head leagues on Yahoo in 2023, only one catcher finished the season as a top 100 ranked player, William Contreras (only two in the top 150). That stands in stark contrast to the three or four catchers that were drafted in the top 100 (and six total in the top 150). That brings us to this year, where we currently have five catchers in the top 100 and seven in the top 150. William Contreras is again the highest rated of the bunch and he currently is the #8 overall player in all of 5×5 H2H Yahoo fantasy baseball, which is unheard of. But all Contreras has done is improve upon his already great first season in Milwaukee. He’s raised his average exit velocity 2.6 MPH to 93.9, his barrel rate a full 1.2%, and his hard hit rate eight full percentage points. He’s hitting slightly more line drives and slightly fewer ground balls while pulling the ball more and swinging at fewer pitches outside the zone. Another of those high-ranking catchers is a rejuvenated Salvador Perez, who is on pace for what would be only his second 30-homer season ever (48 in 2021). Perez is swinging at fewer pitches while making much more contact, and much of that contact results in barreled balls (17.5%) that are hit very hard (hard hit rate – 51.5%). He’s in the top 12% of all hitters in xwOBA, xBA, xSLG, AvgEV, Barrel%, HardHit%, and K%, while being in the top 21% in Sweep Spot% and Whiff%. Perez is only 33 years old, but a 2nd career year out of nowhere would be a bit unexpected. Maybe Bobby Witt, Maikel Garcia and Vinnie P. are rubbing off on him and he’s dusting off one last ride. I’m here for it (in three of my leagues, at that). Will Smith is off to his best start yet, and no surprise since he’s in one of the two or three best offenses in all of baseball. It has to be nice knowing that Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman are batting in front of you, which means he comes to the plate with someone on base almost every single time. He’s got a career-low walk rate right now….but also a career-low strikeout rate, he’s swinging at more pitches than ever but also making more contact than he has in the past. His swinging strike rate is tiny, but his barrel rate is not (11.5%). He’s pulling the ball and hitting line drives more than ever before, and hitting better than ever when starting an at-bat down 0-1 (and he is facing a career-high first pitch strike, so this bodes well). Smith is just doing what we would expect anyone to do hitting cleanup for the Dodgers. If you don’t know Ryan Jeffers, than you either don’t pay attention to Minnesota Twins baseball or don’t play in many deep leagues (or two-catcher leagues). He was on my radar coming into the season and rightfully so. He was the best catcher in Minnesota in 2023, even though Christian Vasquez spent more time behind the plate. He matched his career high in homers (14, in only 335 PA), while lowering his strikeout rate from 36.9% in 2021 to 27.8% in 2023. It’s been even better in 2024, as he has 5 home runs in only 107 plate appearances, while receiving the bulk of catching duties (and DHing on his off days, to get extra PAs in), has dropped his strikeout rate even lower (16.8%) and has been pulling the ball more, hitting hard more often and hitting more line drives (line drives lead to more hits than grounders, especially for our slow-footed catchers). Adley Rutschman rounds out the five guys in the top 100, thriving in the middle of the Orioles’ wonderful offense. Though his walk and strikeout rates have gone in the wrong direction so far, it has not hurt his season, as he is hitting over .300 currently (career high is .277), pacing to match his 20 home runs from last year while barreling the ball more than ever and raising his hard hit rate nearly a full 10%. Others in the top 150 are the Connor Wong breakout in Boston and Travis D’Arnaud filling in for the injured Sean Murphy, while JT Realmuto, Willson Contreras, Yainer Diaz, Cal Raleigh, and Luis Campusano are all guys who are very good options to start at catcher and have an outside chance at finishing in the top 150. 2024 is not the year to punt on catcher production.

    Before the season started, many experts predicted that Yoshinobu Yamamoto would far outperform Shota Imanaga this season. So far, though, Imanaga has set the pace for both foreign free agents and the early National League Cy Young race. Through six starts, Imanaga has allowed a whopping three earned runs – two in a start against Miami and the other in a start against Boston. He started his MLB career with 18.2 consecutive shutout innings (two of the three games were against the Dodgers and the Mariners). He’s averaging just a touch over a strikeout per inning, is only walking one batter per nine innings pitched, and has only allowed two home runs in 34.2 innings pitched. He has some of the best control in the game and has been able to do all this damage with a fastball that averages out at 92 MPH because he has an absolutely filthy shutdown pitched in his splitter, which he has 16 strikeouts and only eight hits allowed against. He throws his fastball primarily in high in and out of the zone, then gets both LHH and RHH batters to chase his splitter low and out of the zone or his sweeper middle-low and away to lefties. I don’t expect him to maintain both an ERA and WHIP below one for the entirety of the season, nor do I think he ends up outshining Yamamoto, but a high-2’s to low-3’s ERA with a WHIP near 1 with a strikeout per inning while pitching for a very good Cubs team means I do believe he ends up as a top 15 to 20 starter come the end of the year. He is a definite sell-high starter, but if you are a top team and you have a few big arms plus Imanaga, I’d hold on and ride out the season out with him.

    After Cam Collier was drafted by the Reds in 2022, he put on a dynamite display in limited at-bats in the complex league before the year was over, leaving prospectors (and the Reds themselves) salivating over what a season in the full-year ball would look like for Cam. 2023 wasn’t an abject failure for Collier. He was 18 for the entire year A-ball. He wasn’t that overwhelmed, as he only had a 23% strikeout rate while walking 12.4% of the time, but he didn’t really show off the power that was expected of him coming out of the draft, as he hit only 6 home runs in 461 plate appearances (and only 21 doubles). Though he doesn’t have the best hit tool (it grades out at around average, at best), he shouldn’t be hitting ground balls over 50% of the time with the amount of lift he can get on the ball. 2024 has been different though, as he’s flipped the script. Even after a “poor” 2023, the Reds decided to move the 19-year-old up to A+ and he has rewarded their decision so far. In only 94 plate appearances, Collier has already hit seven home runs and five doubles, while dropping his strikeout rate 1.7%. His groundball rate is down from 53% to 45.7%, while his flyball rate is up from 23.9% to 37.1%. His line drive rate is down, from 23.2% to 17.1%, so it does seem like he’s intentionally focusing on lifting the ball more and creating more fly balls, but it has resulted in him tapping into more of his power. He may never stick at 3B due to defense, but if he can continue to reach into his power well while lowering his strikeout rate, the Reds (and fantasy owners) will be able to look the other way and ignore a low walk rate (and probably sub-.260 batting average), so long as they are getting 30+ home run seasons from their long-term 1B.

    FALLERS

    Mike Trout has suffered another injury that will cause him to miss most, if not the rest, of the season. The prime seasons of one of the greatest players we will ever get to witness play the game of baseball have been stolen from us by a variety of injuries over the last 5 years or so. He missed 40 games in 2017 because he tore his ulnar collateral ligament in his left thumb (I know it was more than 5 years ago, but that looked like a 40/30 season and would have given him eight straight seasons of 7.5 WAR or higher). A strained calf in 2021 limited him to 36 games. He missed five weeks in 2022 to a back injury (still hit 40 home runs that year though). Broken hand limited him to 82 games in 2023. Throw in the Covid-shortened 2020 season and Trout has appeared in only two seasons worth of games over the last five (counting 2024). Trout is still a no-doubt Hall of Famer, but he was on the path to being one of the three to five greatest players of all time (hyperbole or not, I truly believe that). We already never got to see him in the playoffs…now the last five seasons have mostly robbed of us of seeing him in the regular season as well. Get well Trouty, both baseball and fantasy baseball are more fun when you’re on the field.

    Spencer Torkelson (or King Tork as I was calling him in the second half last year) has not made the leap many of us were hoping was going to happen, after his electric 2023 second half. And, it’s not just “not as good as the 2023 2nd Half” bad, it’s career-worst in year three bad. all of his statcast data (besides launch angle) are way down: average EV is 87.8 MPH, 4 MPH slower than 2023; maxEV is 108.7 MPH, 4 MPH lower; sweet spot rate is 24.1%, 9.1% lower; hard hit rate is 35.6%, 15.4% lower. His strikeout rate is 3% lower, which is good, but his walk rate is also down a full 1%, which is not good. He has a higher BABIP, yet a lower BA, than in 2023. He’s hitting far fewer line drives (18.65 down to 11.5%), but far more fly balls (46.8% to 54%), but his Hard% is down 19.1% and his Med% is up 10.9%. As we know, more line drives lead to more hits and a higher Hard% usually correlates to more hits….so those two numbers dropping are a big reason why he is having such a stinky start to the season. As we speak, 29 games into the season, he has zero home runs and nine doubles in 25 hits. Not great “King” Tork. I don’t think he will get to 31 home runs again this season, but I also hesitate to say he’ll get to even 20. He did only have eight in 404 plate appearances in 2022, so maybe we should put the number at 15.5 home runs and see which side he falls on. If I owned him in any re-draft leagues, I’d be looking to sell for the best piece I can get (maybe find a Tigers fan trying to sell high someone you like). And, in dynasty leagues, I think I’d at least open up talks and see if anyone is willing to pay even 80% of his 2023 second-half numbers and get a more reliable/predictable player in return.

    I want to get out in front and say this first, I love Paul Goldschmidt. I still remember being the first person in my dynasty league (and one keeper league) to be in on Goldy and benefited very well over the course of the first five or six years of his career, because his keeper and auction prices were so cheap. But, I think the beginning of the end may have started after the All-Star break last year and this might be the year too late instead of the year too early to be out on Goldy. Pre-All-Star Goldy looked like a superstar, batting .284 with 15 home runs, an .844 OPS and 131 wRC+ over 87 games. Post- All-Star break, though, his batting average dropped 38 points to .246, he hit only 10 home runs (in only 93 less PA), his OPS dropped 81 points and his wRC+ dropped to 110, which was still above average, but not to the level we expected from Goldschmidt. Through 30 games and 130 plate appearances to start off the 2024 season, the outlook is even bleaker: .230 BA, 2 home runs, .630 OPS, 87 wRC+. His strikeout rate has risen from 23.4% in 2023 to 29.2% this season (and has risen every season since a career-low 18.6% in 2020), while his walk rate is below 12% for only the fourth time (over a full season) in his career. All of his batted ball and statcast numbers are down (besides his sweet spot rate, which is up almost 6%), with his barrel rate, hard-hit rate, strikeout rate, maxEV, swinging strike rate, and contact are all career worsts, and his fly ball swing percentages are one of the three worst of his career. Could this be only the second full, non-covid season that he doesn’t hit 20 home runs? I believe it could be. Was this the season to be out on Goldschmidt at his draft price? I 100% believe that. Though I love the guy, Father Time is undefeated and this seems like the year that Father Time has beat Goldschmidt.

    May 3, 2024, 1:42 pm