Your philosophy on the catcher position?

[BaseballGoodToMe]

Do you treat it like 1B or LF and look for the best offensive producer with defense being a bonus, or do you consider it one of if not the most important defensive position and accept a dead weight batting slot as long as he at least contends for the gold glove? Something in between, BPA?

[koohead]

I look glove (Catcher Ability) first. I would not accept lower than 45 (20-80 scale) as my starting catcher. If his bat was out of this world, he may be a DH but not my starting C.
I would though expect him to have at least a 40 contact rating so he can contribute "something" at the plate.

[USF]

Depends on so many factors ie., the league you play in and the type of players but, in general I focus on a good catchers arm to shut down the opponents run game. There can be a good 10-25% difference between catchers arms in any given league ie., relative to RTO%.

[rink23]

It's all about defense, defense, defense, when it comes to catcher.
In my Cardinals dynasty, the first thing I look at is catcher ability, looking for a 65-plus guy.
If he can hit .240-plus, Yadier Molina was that for me for the 2018-2019 seasons, he can start.
In 2020, Molina was relegated to backup at midseason when I traded for Austin Hedges, another high-defense .240-type hitter.
We won the World Series, by the way.
For the backup, I tend to look for at-least a 50-55 defensive ability -- figuring he will start at least once a week or if the starter gets injured -- with a little more offense.
Hopefully, he also can play first base or DH when the Cardinals are in an AL park.
I take a similar stance at shortstop and center field, looking for 60-plus at those positions.
But his offense also is weighed more heavily.

[Dyzalot]

I've had success with both. For me, especially if playing with a small market team, it's about production per dollar. So if I can get a highly productive offensive catcher who might be a slight negative on defense for far cheaper than I can find the opposite then I'll go that way. Usually when I'm in that situation I try to balance it a little bit with a very good or better defensive backup. But I've had teams do just fine with a below average defensive catcher.

[gemini615]

I like my starting catcher to be at least average in offense and defense and my backup to be a defensive specialist on a cheap contract with a good trait ie..captain, leader, sparkplug.

[AlpineSK]

Originally Posted by gemini615

I like my starting catcher to be at least average in offense and defense and my backup to be a defensive specialist on a cheap contract with a good trait ie..captain, leader, sparkplug.

Yeah this is pretty close to being my approach as well. The way that I see it, there is always one position that I am willing to "punt" to defense though, and that ends up being either catcher or shortstop. If I've got a Rey Ordonez defensive guy at short, I'm more apt to lower the bar defensively on my catcher in favor of a bat, and vice versa. But my backup catcher always has to have a high defensive rating no matter what.

[kingtut313]

My starting catcher needs to be at least a league average defender and my backup is typically a defensive specialist. I put a premium on offensive talent at the classic "defensive" positions (SS, CF, C). That being said, I would still rather start a guy who can't hit anything with an amazing glove over a guy who rakes but is awful on defense.

[daves]

In theory, the better the defensive ability of the catcher, the better the pitching.

Catcher - SS - CF - 2B have to be above average defensively.

[Brad K]

Defense 60+ on 1-100. If he can hit cool but that's a bonus.

[texasmame]

I've always gone for the guy who has a gun back there. Stopping the stolen base game is crucial to me. If he can hit, great. My current catcher is Ryan Hanigan; very good arm and gets his walks.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by gemini615

I like my starting catcher to be at least average in offense and defense and my backup to be a defensive specialist on a cheap contract with a good trait ie..captain, leader, sparkplug.

We think alike... the only difference is I like my starter to be a bit better defensively.

[dbqs]

The further I go into a sim (15, 20 years out) the fewer elite catchers there seem to be (as opposed to starting in current time/current prospects) I usually prioritize defense over offense for C/SS/CF up the middle if there's not many choices.

[subtle]

I'd never accept a poor defensive catcher because it's easy to make up offense in other positions that aren't as important defensively.

Catcher ability and arm really do make a difference. I setup a league one time with 50/50 bad/good catchers and made all the pitchers and batters identical and the catchers with good arms got run on a lot less and the associated pitchers had better stats. It wasn't a 1-1 ratio, so not every catcher with good ability/arm will be better defensively than a lesser rated catcher in every season, but it's easy to spot when you're looking at the extremes.

[cmaug]

Unless I have a legit 2-way stud, I go with a platoon.

In my experience, fatigue hits the catcher harder so I don't want to have a key big money guy that is regularly tired or unavailable.

[ThePretender]

The best bat you can find with acceptable defence every time over an elite glove weak offensive catcher. Ideally you get guys who can hit and field but if you can't get that, I'll take offence over defence.

[Timofmars]

I just care about overall ability of the player, regardless of whether that is offense or defense. Though I go according to my own ratings, not the game's current ability rating. I take what the game gives me.

I usually find some catchers that are too good offensively compared to the alternatives to worry about their relatively poor defense. Sometimes I'll even find a player like a good hitting but poor defense 3B or 1B that has the catcher abilities (relatively poor) but no catcher experience, and I'll train them up to be a great offensive catcher.

I usually look for one lefty batting catcher and one righty, and I judge them mainly on their ability against just the one side. Then I can platoon the catchers and allow them regular rest with minimal disadvantage in resting the better one, who is ideally the lefty.

I tend to favor offense overall though, because I believe more offense is multiplicative, not just additive. Each out avoided is worth more if your other players getting an extra AB are better. Each hit is more valuable if your other players are more likely to be on base or to hit you in after you are on. If I had a weak overall team, maybe I'd favor defense (and speed) more to keep scores low to be able to grab wins from minimal offense.

I also think good pitchers give more value when the defense is weak. Good pitchers may often do more than they need to prevent runs scoring. They can often afford to allow some more runners due to poor defense and errors, and they will still be likely to end the inning with those extra runner left on base. In other words, you get full value from the pitchers if the defense is weak. So I think having good pitching is another reason to favor offense on position players.

[NoOne]

modern-like settings and such / 100pt scale.

i don't know how much '19 has changed, but '18 was thin on catching. my perspective is that an amazing hitter is a handful of players per 100 years or more - and not so amazing at C and less frequent. since i don't expect much offense beyond fairly ordinary-to-slightly above average offense, it makes sense that they better be good in the field too. i still lean offense>defense in value though - just a bit smaller of a difference for C and ss/cf to a smaller extent than C. since the standard is lower for offense, it's much easier to find someone good at both within reasonable range of qualities.

just like any other position, defense simply isn't as important as offense beyond competency -- diminishing returns is inevitable for defense, whereas more offense just keeps giving back. i wouldn't adjust your current preferences too much -- whatever they are even if they differ from mine, because of that previous fact. if willing to give ~X-pts of defense for better offense at other positions, maybe make that threshold a bit smaller for catcher... (relative to choice between 2+ players)

if they are absolutely terrible in the field, that is a problem. that's a much different portion of the curve. i do think it's very important not to be terrible at defense... that's the best way i can put it.

all of that said, my teams are top-10 defensive efficiency every year... ~10th being a catastrophe. it doesn't take a gold glove everywhere. sometimes i only have ~2 elite defensive fielders and typically not catcher, but i obviously value defense to some extent...

[Clavette]

Christian vazquez is my guy on any new realistic league. I can typically get boston to eat a large portion if not all of the contract.

He usually hits well enough for bottom of the lineup and wins plenty of gold gloves

[Shadow4u]

Defense - Defense - Defense