John Buck Still Sucks

Well, it seems fitting, since the very first post on this blog was called, “John Buck Sucks,” to have a Buck Suckery update. 

I’ll admit that Slow John has, up to this point, showed signs of competence with the bat (.260/.333/.580 in 50 AB’s), but as a catcher, he’s still tits on a boar. 

Two consecutive plays proved this in the fifth inning of tonight’s game. 

The first was a two-out stolen second base by Alexei Ramirez.  Nothing really remarkable happened here, except that it was the 13th stolen base this year on Slow John, compared with one caught stealing. 

I can only assume that one guy broke his leg between first and second in order to be caught stealing. 

Last year, teams ran on Buck 71 times in 107 games with Buck catching a big 12 of them—a big 17 percent caught stealing ratio.  This year, they’ve run on him 14 times in 12 games behind the dish, with Buck catching 5.7 percent of his runners. 

If Buck catches the same 107 games this year that he did last year, he’s pacing for 125 attempts at stealing and seven caught—or 118 steals.  That’s an increase of 49 free bases over last year. 

I hate to give opposing managers ideas, but seriously, how slow would a guy have to be to NOT run him against Buck? 

We’re talking Jim Thome slow, or for that matter...John Buck slow. 

Ramirez was very catchable on this one—in fact, had Slow John put the throw toward the first-base side of second rather than the third-base side, he’d have gotten him. 

But Buck just lacks that skill.

The second play allowed Scott Podsednik to score, and it was all Slow John.  In fact, it was incredibly familiar Slow John. 

I’ve noticed over the years that, when a runner is coming into the plate and a tag play is imminent, Buck nearly always moves his body in front of the plate, catches the ball, and then dives for the runner rather than staying back and blocking the plate. 

Two things are wrong with this approach:

1.  Not blocking the plate allows the runner to hook slide and get a foot onto the plate in front of a very slow diving catcher. 

This is what happened with Podsednik.

2.  The ball travels much faster than a diving Slow John; i.e. the ball will get in front of the runner much more quickly if Buck stays back in the baseline and blocks the plate. 

In this situation, Jose Guillen made an absolutely beautiful throw and only the crappy play by our catcher kept him from recording his second assist of the year.

No, folks—I’m not a John Buck fan even with his somewhat gaudy numbers at the moment. 

He’s four for his last 30 and that crashing sound you hear is called, “Regression to the mean.” 

And yes, I realize that Miguel Olivo is blowing wind with the stick right now.  That’s why I was so disappointed to see us lose Brayan Pena so we could keep Tony Pena, Jr.—That may be the dumbest move that Dayton Moore has made in his Royals tenure. 

Bottom line is that the Royals are in a box with respect to the catching position and barring injury; it doesn’t look to improve soon.

Speaking of not improving, what’s up with Kyle Davies? 

His line tonight (4 innings, 6 ER, 3 BB, 2 K, 2 HR) is ugly, and his last three games have been subpar.  He’s again getting behind in the count having to come in 2-0 and 3-1, and getting spanked. 

I hope Bob McClure is on this one.

Mike Jacobs is a flippin’ beast. 

His homer tonight was an absolute moon shot—the hardest and farthest I’ve seen a homer hit at the K.  They claim 440 feet, but I think that shorts Jacobs a few feet. 

Season line—.250, 5 HR, 16 RBI, .823 OPS. 

That $3 million doesn’t look so huge now, does it? 

Of course, Alberto Callaspo is hitting .381/2HR/10 RBI with an OPS of 1.023.  The combination of Mark Teahen and Callaspo in the lineup beats the heck out of Teahen and that Alex guy. 

Sorry—but it’s true.

Billy Butler looks more and more like a first baseman every game.  The word is that he’s working his butt off on defense, and it shows. 

Good for the kid.

Jose Guillen is on another hot streak. 

Season numbers—.306/3/11, .923 OPS.

He commented last night that “this is a different Royals team than last year.” 

Is it a different Jose Guillen?  I’ve even seen him smile during games a few times.

And to close this blog—at least now, looking at the Royals lineup, no batting averages start with .1. 

That’s good to see.

Mark my words—at some point, the Royals will have to address the catching situation. 

Buck’s numbers project to a catcher that allows 118 extra runners in scoring position for the opponent.  If one-third of them score, that’s nearly 40 extra runs over the course of this season.