In preparing for your draft, you have to prep for situations where your top choices at each position get taken. Having early, mid, and late round targets at each position will help you plan for the inevitable. Below, you will find my favorite early, mid, and late round catchers to target in fantasy baseball drafts this year. I am using NFBC ADP over the last seven days to reference where players are going in drafts.
Early Round Target
Adley Rutschman – BAL
Lately, Adley Rutschman has been drafted as the third catcher, after William Contreras and Yainer Diaz. He has an ADP of 62, just seven picks ahead of Salvador Perez.
NFBC leagues feature two catchers, so the value of catchers gets bumped up a bit, but Rutschman is solid value early in drafts. For a catcher, he has been durable 154 games in 2023, and 148 in 2024. With the Orioles’ depth, they are able to rotate him in as DH to keep his legs fresh and get him more at-bats. He has the most games played of any catcher in the last two seasons combined. Among catchers with at least 800 PAs during that span, he ranks seventh in homers, third in runs, fourth in RBI, and fourth in AVG.
Rutschman’s other best assets are his plate discipline and quality of contact. He has an 85% contact rate for his career and has never had a strikeout rate over 18%. That has resulted in a career batting average of .261, which is great, considering the league average AVG for a catcher last season was .234. He also pulls and drives the ball extremely well, which should play well in Camden Yards this season.
He has a high floor, which makes him an excellent early-round target.
Mid Round Target
Logan O’Hoppe – LAA
Logan O’Hoppe makes for a great mid-round target at Catcher if you miss out on one of the top players or just want to wait it out at the position.
O’Hoppe has some power in his bat, which should get unleashed if he can stay healthy. He reached 20 home runs last season in 136 games. Last season, he had a 12% barrel rate and a 46% HardHit rate. Those were fourth and third best, respectively for qualified catchers. Among all qualified batters, those ranked in the top 35, profiling similarly to Jake Burger and Pete Alonso. O’Hoppe also drives and pulls the ball well, a skill that should result in hits.
The biggest concern for O’Hoppe is his plate discipline. He carried a 29% strikeout rate last season. His 33% chase rate would not be too concerning if not for a 44% contact rate on pitches outside of the zone, and a 68% overall contact rate. Those flaws drag down his upside.
Still, fantasy managers looking for a mid-round target at catcher should keep O’Hoppe on their radars.
Late Round Target
Danny Jansen – TB
Danny Jansen has played in Toronto for most of his career, moving to Tampa this season. He has cracked 100 games played just once during his career, arguably because of a crowded catcher room and some deficiencies at the plate.
Both of those circumstances could change in Tampa, where he should be the primary catcher. For a player with a career .220 AVG, he has some remarkably good metrics underlying that. Jansen has had a double-digit walk rate in three of seven seasons, and a 20% strikeout rate or better in five seasons. He pulls the ball extremely well, and has shown the ability to drive the ball, but has primarily been a fly ball hitter the last three seasons. During that time, his flyball rate has been over 50%. Last season, Jansen’s HR/FB rate was nearly half of his career norm, resulting in just nine homers in 328 PAs, compared to 19 in 317 PAs the year prior.
Playing in Steinbrenner Field for his home games this season should work to his advantage if he continues his flyball tendencies. And he should get the bulk of the playing time behind the plate.
If you waited a while to snag a catcher, or you need a late second catcher in a 2-catcher league, make Jansen a late-round target in your draft.
For more of the great fantasy baseball rankings and analysis you’ve come to expect from FantraxHQ, check out our full 2025 Fantasy Baseball Draft Kit! We’re here for you all the way up until Opening Day and then on into your championship run.
