Fantasy Baseball: Matt Wieters, Carlos Santana Or Buster Posey??

The 2010 season has brought us one of the best group of prospects MLB has seen in quite some time. Two of the best prospects coming into the 2010 season were catchers Carlos Santana andBuster Posey. And now fantasy owners know why they were ranked so high. Last year, they hype machine went crazy on Matt Wieters, yet he has not reached the hype bestowed upon him in 2010.

Here are their stats as of Wednesday:

Posey-162 AB, 8 HRs, 30 RBIs, .352-.386-.568 with a 13% K rate and 5% BB rate

Santana-113 ABs, 6 HRs, 19 RBIs, 2 SBs, .292-.443-.566 with a 18% K rate and 22% BB rate

Wieters-269 ABs, 6 HRs, 29 RBIs, .245-.315-.357 with a 22% K rate and 9% BB rate.

In a recent Ask BA question, Jim Callis was asked about the following:

Over the past few seasons, Matt Wieters has been largely regarded as the best young catching prospect in baseball, and Jesus Montero, Buster Posey and Carlos Santana were all ranked right behind him in various orders. How would you rank the four now, given that Wieters has struggled the most out of that group this year?

Eli Johnson
Berkeley, Calif.

Though Wieters hasn't made the immediate major league impact expected of him , I'd still take him over Montero, Posey and Santana. Wieters still should be the best all-around catcher of the group.

Wieters has as strong and accurate an arm as any of the other catchers, and he's a better receiver than the others. While he's batting just .245/.315/.357 this season, he has made significant strides with his plate discipline and he's still a switch-hitter with as much power as the rest of the group.

Montero may be the best all-around hitter in the long run, but he's not going to stick at catcher and he's having a so-so year in Triple-A while Posey and Santana are scalding the ball in the majors, so I'd rank Montero fourth in this crowd. Posey and Santana are very close, and I go back and forth on them all the time. Posey is more athletic and has a chance to be a little better defender, but I believe Santana will be the more dynamic offensive player.

Based on the stats above, who would you rather have in 2011? I have to think Posey and Santana will be ranked in the top 5 catchers going into the 2011 season, and I would prefer Santana as he appears to have more power and can get on base more.