BB Top 10 Catchers

1. Wil Myers
2. Jesus Montero
3. Devin Mesoraco
4. Derek Norris
5. Yasmani Grandal
6. Wilin Rosario
7. Tony Sanchez
8. Gary Sanchez
9. Travis d'Arnaud
10. Carlos Perez



Derek Norris

JR- I was surprised when I looked up Derek Norris's baseball reference page to find how statistically well he has performed defensively this season: 52% CS rate and only six passed balls (down from twenty-eight in 2009). I had him pegged as a future first baseman coming into the year, and I am really interested in seeing some updated scouting reports on the defense. The loss of power was expected given the hamate injury, and the bat has a chance to be special with the much improved K/BB when it returns.

MH- Norris is easily #4 for me. While it hasn't shown up in his numbers this year due to a hamate injury, he has very good power. He draws walks like they're going out of style. One thing I want to point out about Norris is his K rate. If you went to fangraphs.com you'd see a huge jump in his K% to 31.6% which looks horrible. The thing is, fangraphs calculates K rate as K/AB instead of K/PA which sort of penalizes Norris because of the jump in his walk rate. His K/PA% actually went up less than a percent from 21.5% last year to 22.4% this year. Defense has been a question mark for Norris, but as Jeff mentions he appears to have made some major strides this year. There were reports late last year that he was very focused on improving his defense and looks like that's been very beneficial.

JS- I had Norris at four too, but I do have a concern about his walk rate. Half of his strikeouts are of the looking variety which tells me either he is either extremely patience or passive but the more I think about it the more I lean towards the latter. There is a possibility that finds himself in may deep counts and his uber selectivity is causing him to walk more than a great approach had led to that element of his game.