By Jeff Parker
Now that the Kansas City Royals have signed Jason Kendall to a two-year, $6 million deal, you may be inclined to think he is better than John Buck. That is simply not so. Kendall has really fallen off since the middle part of this decade and while he was once one of the top catchers in baseball now he is among the worst, if not the worst (offensively speaking). Of the 22 catchers with 1500 plate appearances since 2005 Kendall ranks dead last in OPS+. He really has had a tale of two careers.
| 1996-2004 | .306/.387/.418/108 OPS+ |
| 2005-2009 | .261/.336/.321/76 OPS+ |
Since 2005 Buck has a line of .234/.301/.405/85 which isn’t pretty but he did have a .484 slugging percentage last season along with a 103 OPS+. If I’m given the choice between two catchers with limited offensive upside I’m going with the one who is six years younger and carrying less mileage. There is a danger in releasing Buck when he might possibly be figuring things out. Dayton Moore would surely receive a firestorm of criticism if John Buck were to flourish elsewhere. It’s possible that if Buck were a free agent that given his age (29 years old) he might have been the most sought after catcher at the winter meetings. Not Ivan Rodriguez, Bengie Molina, or Jason Kendall. So why doesn’t his general manager want him?
Possibly part of Moore’s desire to be rid of Buck is because of his struggles throwing out base runners. He threw out just 16% last season and is at 26% for his career, Kendall’s numbers are 20% and 29% – not much better. (For the curious Olivo’s %’s are 28 and 34. Mike Sweeney threw out 36% of the runners who attempted to steal against him. No reason to mention that other than I just wanted bring up Sweeney’s name one more time.)
The Royals offense is weak and this move makes it weaker. Last season Royals catchers hit .270/.310/.504 with 31 home runs and 99 RBIs and they aren’t going to match that with a Kendall/Brayan Pena combo where Kendall gets the majority of the playing time. Pena still has some offensive upside but the odds of him taking over the starting job would seem to be pretty small. Make no mistake, Kendall will start.
Offering two years to a 35 year old catcher with nearly 2000 games under his belt is a bit mystifying. I can’t imagine why a team that isn’t in win now mode would go after the veteran likes of Kendall and Scott Podsednik (also of interest to KC). For that matter I don’t know why a team in win now mode would either but that’s just me. The Royals have a lot of offensive holes on their team but catcher wasn’t one of them.
It is now.
Jeff Parker blogs regularly about the Royals at Royally Speaking and is an occasional contributor to Dugout Central.
