At the end of the 2009 season, John Buck had a certain tone in his voice that seemed resigned to the fact that he probably wouldn’t be back with the Royals next year. They gave Brayan Pena a decent look and Dayton Moore was pretty clear about going in a different direction regarding who the starting catcher would be in 2010.

Now we’re hearing the Royals are showing interest in Ivan Rodriguez. He’s 38 years old. He’s had a great career. But does anybody really think he’d be better than John Buck at this stage of his career? He hit 10 HR and drove in 47 runs while hitting .249 for Texas and Houston last season in 121 games. John Buck hit 8 HR and drove in 36 runs while hitting .247 in just 59 games for the Royals. And Buck is much younger.

Granted, Buck is going to cost the Royal more money, but I agree with Craig Brown at Royals Authority. Buck will only make around $3 million in 2010 and he’s an adequate catcher. What’s wrong with him being the Opening Day catcher? He certainly isn’t the problem with the Royals and bringing in another veteran who is past his prime wouldn’t be the solution if he were.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 5th, 2009 at 3:42 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.