Quote:
Originally Posted by ShaolinFlame
JP isn't great by any means, but John Buck is actually an offensive black hole. He will give you maybe 15 HRs, but his line last year was 192/297/374/644 FFS. JP has never OPSed less than 700 in his two year career. John Buck hasn't OPSed more than 700 in two years. And even then he had several other years less than 700 (over his 9 year career), albeit with a few nice outliers (one of which got him PAID!).
The one thing I do like about John Buck is the higher OBP, since the rest of this lineup can seriously mash. But the rest of the lineup can also seriously get on base, which may lend more to JPs higher average and better power. It definitely goes both ways (acceptable platoon - maybe?).
Either way, I can't believe John Buck as a starting catcher in the NL central, let alone the AL East. Oh and his arm is crap too. And don't even go look at the respective WAR between them... (It's embarrassingly tilted towards JPs short career). I can't really remember how well he called a game though, does anyone?
In conclusion, John Buck is a seriously bad catcher yo. The return on this trade would need to be either a 4 WAR SP or a better catcher on a shorter term contract. And if it is a SP, you better sell some crap from the farm in order to upgrade on the front end behind the plate (or pray that TDA magically becomes amazing and goes all 'Buster Posey'). Otherwise you're in for a seriously frustrating year if you plan on seeing John Buck start 120+ games.
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No question John Buck is god awful. I'm not sure the Jays could possibly get worst defensively with him, I don't remember how he was at calling games however. In my mind, if somehow the Jays were to trade away Arencibia it would mean D'Arnaud would be with the big team either opening day or very early on in the season. There's no way John Buck is playing 100 plus games the Blue Jays starting catcher. Life would be a lot easier if Travis had just stayed healthy last season and JP would be as good as gone.
AA seems to be pretty honest when he talks about wanting to see D'Arnaud actually get some time in AAA this season and force their hand. I think from both our posts we can pretty much agree that any offer for JP would have to offer the Jays a significant upgrade in the rotation.
Projecting Arencibia going forward as a catcher, best case scenario is an average major league catcher. He's never been able to draw walks, in both the minors and majors and shows no signs of improving that way.
Likely scenario we see playing out is the Jays start the season with Arencibia and Buck. D'Arnaud gets called up halfway through the season. His bat is good enough you could DH him at times to get him playing time, as I think AA did mention that, although I'd much rather him learn the position at the major league level as he is the long term answer at the position. The second most likely scenario is the Jays trade Arencibia, likely along with others, for a Starting Pitcher and bring in a catcher either through that trade or a separate transaction. And then the third would be the Jays start the season with D'Arnaud and Buck.
Jays would be in a better spot with a major league ready D'Arnaud but they do have JP on a very team friendly, controlled contract and there is a need for starting catchers. One thing we've heard expressed by AA this offseason is that nobody is untouchable. JP would be no exception to that