Which MLB players make up the 2023 All-Availability Team?

Catcher

Catcher is a physically demanding position, and the use of catching tandems is common in MLB today. Only a handful of teams even allow their principal catcher to accumulate 500 plate appearances in a season.

So it’s not surprising that only two catchers — the fewest of any position — reached the 500 plate appearance per season threshold for availability to be considered.

Those two were J.T. Realmuto of the Phillies and Will Smith of the Dodgers. Realmuto had the better WAR, with 3.5 in 2021 and 6.5 in 2022, for a total of 10.0. Smith measured 3.5 and 4.2, for 7.7

But Smith had the superior OPS+, scoring 127 and 120 for a two-year average of 123.5 Realmuto produced OPS+ ratings of 110 and 129 for an average of 119.5.

That narrowed the question to total plate appearances. Realmuto came to bat 1,099 times in those two seasons, amounting to 75.9 percent of the 1,448 standard set by Semien. Smith fell just short of that, with 1,079 plate appearances or 74.5 percent of Semien’s standard.

Based on ordinal ranks in all three categories, Realmuto earned first team all-availability with an average rank of 1.33. Smith’s first-, second- and second-place finishes put him on the second team at an average rank of 1.67.