Cubs have a lot of ground to make up in NL Central catchers rankings heading into '25

4. Miguel Amaya - Cubs

I don't know if dropping Miguel Amaya fourth will upset Cubs fans for not being low enough (not that there is much lower to go) or not high enough with some of the fluky seasons that powered players higher than him. The fact of the matter is we still don't know who the real Amaya is. His second half was drastically better than his first: he went from being one of the least valuable players in the league to being one of the best-hitting catchers. If Amaya could maintain his 124 wRC+ from July 7 onward, he's an All-Star candidate and will shoot to second on this list. Conversely, if the Panamanian backstop has a return to his 2024 early-season form, he won't be on the big-league roster much longer.

Unfortunately, his defense has lots of holes too so even somewhere in between at the plate presents at best a mediocre option behind the dish for the Cubs. It will be interesting to see how quickly Amaya and Carson Kelly are moved into a pure 50/50 split behind the plate if Amaya struggles again.

5. Ivan Herrera - Cardinals

Willson Contreras is officially a full-time first baseman - probably long overdue after watching him struggle so mightily with pitch framing as a Cub. The Cards bounced between him, Pedro Pages and the intriguing Ivan Herrera behind the dish last year. Herrera put up some pretty wild numbers, including 2.1 fWAR in just 70 appearances. He was never a top-100 prospect type guy but was highly thought of earlier in his minor league days before slowly falling down the Cardinals' organizational top prospect lists. Similarly to Bart, it's so difficult to tell if a small and positive sample size in 2024 was indicative of a true breakout.

If he continues to rack up fWAR at the same rate over 162 games, he's a legitimate star. I admittedly did not watch him hit much last year, so I can't speak qualitatively to his approach outside of watching some at-bats. His Statcast numbers convey he's a slightly above-league-average bat when it comes to exit velocity, K rate and walk rate. That's a valuable player as a catcher if it continues moving forward.

Right now, the sample size is SO low that Herrara has to slot in last on the list. It will be interesting to see how frequently St. Louis deploys the backstop after Pedro Pages got rave reviews for his handling of the pitching staff for the majority of last season. St. Louis also projects to have a significantly thinner lineup in 2025, which might cause some to expect regression from the "protection" factor amongst the remaining players.