2012 Fantasy Baseball: Catcher Rankings

Opening Day is next week and Athlon Sports has all the fantasy baseball rankings you need to get ready for the upcoming season.

Athlon Sports has combined nine fantasy baseball big boards from around the web to compile an updated consensus Top 200 as well as positional breakdowns.

There's no change among the top eight catchers with Carlos Santana leading the way followed by Mike Napoli and Brian McCann. Buster Posey and Joe Mauer, both of whom are trying to rebound from disappointing 2011 seasons impacted by significant injuries, round out the top five.

Alex Avila is the biggest riser among the catchers, as he went up 11 spots on the Big Board from No. 119 to No. 108. After Avila, the next five catchers on the list all experienced drops of at least 10 positions on the Top 200.

Two of the biggest fallers, were J.P Arencibia and Russell Martin. The two AL East catchers each dropped at least 25 spots, which resulted in them barely maintaining their Top 200 status.

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Rank – Position ranking
OVR – Overall ranking on The Big Board
LR — Last Ranked, where player was ranked on The Big Board that was published on Feb. 20, 2012
NR — Not Ranked, means player did not appear on The Big Board that was published on Feb. 20, 2012

AS – Athlon Sports (updated 3/19/12)
CBS – CBSSportsline.com (as of 3/16/12)
ESPN – (updated 3/13/12)
FOX – FOXSports.com (updated 3/7/12)
MLB – MLB.com (as of 3/15/12)
RC – RotoChamp.com (updated 3/18/12)
RS – RotoSummit.com (updated 2/27/12)
USA — USAToday.com (updated 2/13/12)
Y! – Yahoo! Sports (updated 2/24/12)*

*Yahoo! ranked only 120 players on their list, while Athlon's Big Board contains 200. The aggregated scores of the other eight big boards were used to extrapolate Yahoo!’s rankings to 200 players.

Athlon Sports Fantasy Rankings**: Big Board | C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP

**Positional rankings will be updated throughout the week

Other names to consider (in alphabetical order): John Buck (MIA, C), Ryan Doumit (MIN, C), Ramon Hernandez (COL, C), Nick Hundley (SD, C), Chris Ianetta (LAA, C), Jonathan Lucroy (MIL, C), Salvador Perez (KC, C), A.J. Pierzynski (CHW, C), Carlos Ruiz (PHI, C), Jarod Saltalamacchia (BOS, C)

— By Mark Ross, updated on March 29, 2012

Other Fantasy Baseball Content:

2012 Fantasy Baseball: First Base Rankings
2012 Fantasy Baseball: Second Base Rankings
2012 Fantasy Baseball: Shortstop Rankings
2012 Fantasy Baseball: Third Base Rankings
2012 Fantasy Baseball: Outfield Rankings
2012 Fantasy Baseball: Catcher Rankings
2012 Fantasy Baseball: Starting Pitcher Rankings
2012 Fantasy Baseball: Relief Pitcher Rankings
2012 MLB Fantasy Closer Grid
2012 Fantasy Baseball Sleepers and Busts: Infield
2012 Fantasy Baseball Sleepers and Busts: Outfield
2012 Fantasy Baseball Sleepers and Busts: Starting Pitching
2012 Fantasy Baseball Sleepers and Busts: Closers
Fantasy Baseball Studs to Avoid in 2012
2012 Fantasy Baseball Deep Sleepers

For more fantasy baseball help, visit our friends at the Fantasy Baseball Hub.