July 7, 2017

Michael Griffin recommends catchers (C) who can be valuable waiver wire targets or adds to help fantasy owners for Week 14 of the 2017 fantasy baseball season.

We're now close to the All-Star Game and the catching stats are pretty grim, as far as the waiver wire goes. Nearly all the backstops with double-digit homers are above 50 % ownership, with three exceptions. Who are they? You can probably guess. Hint: They all appear later in this column. Play the Jeopardy theme song, please....

In other catcher news: Apparently, Kyle Schwarber hit the cover off the ball in the Minors, and was recalled by the Cubs. He's already back on the upswing in terms of adds, though he never was in any danger of hitting the sub-50% ownership mark in the first place.

10-12 Team League Catcher Pickups

Here are some catcher waiver wire pickups for Week 10, to consider adding to your teams. We'll show you three players to snag in 10-12 player leagues, and also three to look out for in two-catcher leagues. All of these players are just at or below 50% ownership in Yahoo! fantasy leagues.

Mike Zunino  (SEA) - 44% owned

While Mike Zunino has had some people dropping him, since they really don't like his strikeouts, he has homered twice in his past 10 games. He's not filet mignon when it comes to catching quality, but he's far from some of the dog food that we've been seeing this year. If he gets on another hot streak before the All-Star break, you could really reap the benefits. He's also tied for sixth among all catchers in RBI.

Wilson Ramos (TB) - 41% owned

Wilson Ramos hasn't exactly knocked the cover off the ball since coming off the disabled list. Then again, if you were facing Major League pitching after an extended absence, you'd probably produce the same results. Still, he's in fairly decent demand in terms of ownership - such is the state of the position.

Tyler Flowers  (ATL) - 24% owned

Tyler Flowers is someone who has piqued the interest of fantasy owners this week. He's one of the top-added catchers... though that might be because some of them just need a warm body at the position. He's far from being just that, though, hitting nearly .320 and ranking among the leaders in RBI. You could do a lot worse than him, for sure.

Two-Catcher League Pickups

Austin Hedges (SDP) - 18% owned

A fair amount of people are getting tired of waiting for  Austin Hedges to have his bat wake up again from its nap. He's among the top-dropped at catcher. To those people, I say... just wait. He's going to hit a bunch of homers again. It'll probably happen after the All-Star break, when he's had a few days to just rest up. Then he'll be worth it again in a two-catcher league. It's not like any of the leaders at catcher have separated themselves from the others.

Stephen Vogt (MIL) 17% owned

There's been a big uptick in Stephen Vogt's ownership numbers - he's been one of the most added catchers recently. A big reason is the production he's given his new team - bashing three homers in six games is definitely a way to make fantasy owners' ears perk up. Hopefully, he'll keep up this revival from the change of scenery. He's not a starter in Milwaukee, so that's why he's in the two-catcher category.

Robinson Chirinos (TEX) - 4% owned

Robinson Chirinos keeps on chugging along, hitting homers. He's got 12 of them, which ties him for third among all catchers. If you guessed all of them without checking stats, give yourself a No-Prize. He's also No. 3 among the double-digit catchers I mentioned in the introduction. He's got more runs AND RBI than his teammate, Jonathan Lucroy, who is owned by a lot more people. If you like getting help in all three categories, pick him up, by all means...

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