Marlins Ink John Buck
No owner attracts more synonyms of cheap than the Marlins’ Jeffrey Loria. Parsimoniously or prudently—depending on your perspective – the Marlins roster usually consist of players in the Land Before Dime stage of their careers. The conversation briefly, ever so briefly, centered on Loria’s sudden generosity yesterday when the team inked John Buck for three years and $18 million … then the team went and traded Dan Uggla for a (perceived) whimsical return.
On Buck – who possesses one of the most preposterously pun-able names for two separate categories of player: 1) home run hitting 2) paid baseball player – the contract appears overproduced. Too much pay and too many years make for a poor soundtrack. The 2010 season stands out in Buck’s portfolio as it does for many of his Blue Jays teammates. Buck racked up nearly 2,000 plate appearances with the Royals from 2004-2008 and hit .234/.298/.398 with 20 home runs per 592 trips. Over the last two seasons, Buck has 639 plate appearances with 28 home runs and a line of .271/.309/.487.
Aggression seems to be the key to Buck’s succession from the guild of no-hit catchers. Buck upped his first-pitch (41% first five years versus 49% the last two) and overall swing rates (56.8% last season, pre-2009 full season career high being 51.7% in 2005) while also cutting his walk rates (7.2% first five versus 4.5% the last two) and percentage of strikeouts looking (33% first five versus 14% the last two). All of which seemingly supports Keith Law’s observation that Buck is a fastball hitter who changed his approach recently.
Teams have access to more information than any outside source, which should mean Buck’s ability to live off fastballs early in the count will soon be exploited. Buck also does not figure to hold a .335 batting average on balls in play again either- his career average even now is only .289. Most of those extra hits seem to be extra singles, as Buck’s percentage of hits that went for extra bases was actually less than his career average last season – 39% versus 40% — and his home run per fly ball ratio remained consistent with career norms.
A move away from the American League is always healthy, but moving from the home run friendly confines of the Rogers Centre could dampen the effects. Nevertheless, Buck still stands a good shot at being an upgrade. Florida’s collection of catchers hit .226/.289/.338 in 2010 as six different players received at least 20 innings behind the plate. Major League Baseball hit Ronny Paulino with a suspension during the season and the Marlins will likely hit him with a non-tender soon. That leaves Brad Davis and Brett Hayes in line for the backup job until John Baker returns and forms the John Buckner platoon with Buck.
Even with an inflated cost per win and deflated starting catcher market, one has to wonder about the annual average cost of $6 million. If the market is on its tiptoes, with a value per win around $5 million, then Buck is being paid for 1.2 wins. He is generally good for that, with the exception of the defensively poor 2008 and shortened 2009, although that stands to vary with the defensive methodology used. Still, that’s with the high per win mark, which may or may not come to fruition.
With that, there’s certainly some reason to think the Marlins overpaid in dollars and years alike. Such a sentence holds so many questions and so few answers. Is there not an inherent inverse relationship with years and money anymore? Since when do the Marlins overpay for marginal talent like this? Amazingly, those aren’t even the most compelling questions surrounding this franchise today.
Finally, the Marlins have re-attained Mike Jacobs.
“Amazingly, those aren’t even the most compelling questions surrounding this franchise today.”
It’s always good to end an article with an allusion to other, more interesting topics that the article doesn’t cover.
…but which are ably covered at length by other articles on this very site.
Way to go! Incredible!
Can someone smarter than me please explain WTF the Marlins are up to? That’s 4 transactions in a week, and 2 or 3 (depending on how you feel about Maybin) of them have been of the head-scratching variety.
Jeff. Loria.
Oh I don’t know. The Marlins don’t have a history of egregiously bad deals. Yes, it seems too much for Buck, but with their history of catching problems, maybe they wanted certainty. He’s not that bad and they have a bunch of kids.
I think they are cutting bait on Maybin & Uggla. Could be like when the Braves dumped Millwood on the Phillies for supposedly nothing. They got some useful stuff and Millwood turned into an expensive pumpkin after 1 season. And don’t underestimate the pull of the power bullpen. A lot of people were very impressed with what the Padres did with decent starters and a pile of quality relievers. Maybe we are looking at the new market inefficiency being exploited. Who says relievers are really fungible? Maybe hard thowing young relievers are worth their weight n gold.
That, and they just didn’t want Maybin around any more.
Living in KC, and having been subjected to many years of Buck, I find this move right up there with the White Sox trading for Mark Teahen, then promptly giving him a three year extension. South Side fans were ripping out their hair and gnashing their teeth by midseason. Fish fans won’t be far behind. There are many wild pitches in their future, never mind how he’ll not hit.
That said, Buck is one of the truly nice guys out there, and more power to him for being able to leverage his fluky season with the BABIP fairly into hoodwinking Beinfest out of $18 million.
Is this really that bad of a deal?
Do we think Buck isn’t going to be worth 1.2 wins/season over the next three years?
Granted he’s a no-walks hacker and will most likely not slug as well as he did this year, thus drastically lowering his value… but I still think he tops .425 wOBA and 1.2 wins, so ultimately I don’t mind this deal.
whoops! 325 wOBA…
Yeah, it is. A team with the Marlins’ payroll can’t be paying market price for mediocre players….and it is a stretch to even say they paid market price. I am so, so happy I am not a Marlins fan, and Jeff Loria should not have the privilege of owning a baseball team.
3 year contract to a league average 30 year old catcher seems like a good way to purchase an expensive millstone .
It seems like the Marlins want to replace the power they’re losing with Dan Uggla’s departure, and maybe they have. This makes me wonder if anyone has ever analyzed whether there’s any merit to teams trying to balance their attacks with speed and power, or whether they’d all just be better off maximizing WAR.
Anyway, good article except that I can’t figure out how John Buck + John Baker = John BuckNer.
My life wouldn’t be complete without an article on John Buck.
Talk about a slow day @Fangraphs.com…….
So let’s see:
Cody Ross – due his third arbitration paycheck which might hit around 7-8 million dumped.
Dan Uggla – due his third arbitration paycheck which might hit around 10-12 million dumped.
Cameron Maybin – due his first arbitration paycheck which might get maybe 1 million dumped.
By my unscientific math count, the Marlins have saved roughly $20 in arbitration fees this coming offseason. Let’s see, add in 4 for Hanley Ramirez’s pay increase, 4 more for Josh Johnson, 6 for buck, 2.5 for Infante, ~2 more for Annibal Sanchez’s second arb year, another 2 for Leo Nunez’s second arb year and… blammo. 20.5 million.
What’s that? Paulino, Veras, and Pinto are due roughly 5 million total in pay increases? Oh shit! Quick! Dump Ricky Nolasco!