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

Happy New Year's everyone! While the Chicago Cubs front office still seems unsure if they will make a resolution to keep improving their roster this offseason, we can all be appreciative that the Cubs play in a division where none of the teams seem hell-bent on competing this year.

In this article and ensuing posts, I'll take a look around the division and rank the projected starter for each team at each position to get us all reacquainted with the competition (or lack thereof). We will then combine the total rankings, and stack rank the teams' rosters overall.

To break in the New Year, let's start at catcher. The position shockingly has some pretty interesting storylines as we head into 2025. Unfortunately, the top of the list starts in Milwaukee.

1. William Contreras - Brewers

Willson Contreras' little brother has erupted into borderline superstardom and is the clear-cut best catcher in the National League at this point. He's always rated out as a better receiver than his older brother (and as an excellent pitch framer some years), and the former Brave drastically improved his advanced batted ball metrics in 2025. The package of consistent performance, elite slug for the position, and above-average defensive metrics make William Contreras the clear number one in the division.

By the way: the Brewers absolutely cleaned up in the three-way trade that brought Contreras up north from Atlanta. The deal was a bit of a head-scratcher even when it happened, as the Braves had to give up a ton to gain a potentially slightly better catcher in Sean Murphy. After one good season, Murphy has taken a definite downturn due to injuries and the Brewers also scooped up ace reliever Joel Payamps in the deal.

2. Tyler Stephenson - Reds

After Contreras, it gets pretty muddled when trying to rank the catchers in the Central heading into 2025. There's a host of former top prospects and guys that have at least one intriguing dimension to their game.

The Reds' Stephenson appeared on a couple of top 100 prospect lists but never was a consensus elite prospect. However, he's figured out a way to provide a good amount of value at the dish since taking over the starter role in the Queen City; his slugging and on-base skills provide most of it. His 2024 .782 OPS sneakily ranked third among catchers in MLB. Stephenson was a legitimately good player last year at a position fraught with mediocrity.

That being said, there are significant concerns with his defense and there are some advanced metrics that show his average (and OBP) is inflated by some luck against breaking balls (.252 batting average vs a .205 expected). To me, Stephenson seems like a solid everyday catcher that probably has reached his ceiling. I doubt he will be number two on this list by midseason, but deserves the credit for back-to-back seasons of quality production.

3. Joey Bart - Pirates

Was 2024 real? Joey Bart was one of the more renowned prospects in recent memory: he attracted tons of attention because of both the incredible toolset and serving as heir apparent to Boster Posey. Bart struggled in parts of three seasons with the Giants and was dumped for an eighth-round pitcher to the Pirates last year right after Opening Day. I think everyone, including Pittsburgh's front office, was shocked at his output at the plate following the issues while on the Bay. The former #2 overall pick only played in 80 games but rung up a .799 OPS while posting a career-high in homers.

Again, there are some concerns here with advanced stats portending a decrease in batted ball outcomes. Combined with the fact that he's horrid defensively and the Pirates have some other former top prospect options (Henry Davis and Endy Rodriguez), I lean toward forecasting some significant regression here and him not being in this slot by midseason. But, similarly to Stephenson, he put up an impressive (albeit abbreviated) 2024 and deserves a ranking above the bottom two options.

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.