Top fantasy baseball catcher waiver pickups for Week 13

Catcher remains as dire as ever for fantasy baseball purposes, but as we get deeper and deeper into the 2023 season, we’re beginning to get a sense of whose slow starts are more than a fluke and whose breakouts look like they’re for real — and who we might’ve buried a bit prematurely. So if you’re like most of us, looking for any kind of production from the catcher position, here are three backstops likely available on the waiver wire who could return surprisingly solid production for the rest of the year.

Fantasy baseball waiver wire: Week 13 top catcher pickups

Danny Jansen, C, Toronto Blue Jays

Roster percentage: 13.5%

We highlighted Jansen in this space last week just prior to his return from the IL, and it looks like his injured groin is feeling just fine — the slugger went 3-for-4 with two homers in his second start back on Thursday.

Jansen is now slugging .566 with eight homers over his last 28 games, and after 15 homers in just 72 games last year, it’s becoming clear that his power is very, very real. He’s relegated Alejandro Kirk to the clear 1B in Toronto’s catching platoon, and if you need homers, he should continue supplying them all season long.

Patrick Bailey, C, San Francisco Giants

Roster percentage: 1.8%

The 13th overall pick in the 2020 MLB Draft, Bailey threatened to be a forgotten man in San Francisco’s catching rotation behind Joey Bart. But Bart’s battled injury all year long, and Bailey has taken that opportunity and run with it, hitting .329/.356/.571 with three homers across his first 75 plate appearances. The high strikeout rate is a concern, but Bailey’s contact profile suggests that this breakout is largely real: He has a 50% hard-hit rate, 16% barrel rate and .330 expected batting average. He’s been so good that Bart was recently optioned down to Triple-A, meaning this job is Bailey’s for the foreseeable future.

Jake Rogers, C, Detroit Tigers

Roster percentage: 0.2%

Rogers looked like a breakout candidate after a sizzling Spring Training, but while he flashed at times early this season, his strikeout rate and low batting average kept his above-average power from getting into games. Those are still concerns, but Rogers has heated up recently, slashing .261/.346/.696 with three homers and a double over his last seven starts. With Eric Haase splitting time in the outfield for Detroit this year, Rogers will get ample opportunity to start behind the plate, and there are signs that his average is partly the result of bad luck: high strikeout rate or no, a .197 BABIP is unsustainably low. If that stabilizies, it could get Rogers’ average back to .220 or .230 (where Statcast thinks he should be) and all of a sudden his 20-homer power becomes far more appealing.