Well, it’s official.
The Marlins have made a couple of questionable moves so far in this young offseason and continued that trend Wednesday with the finalization of an odd three-year, $18 million contract for free agent catcher John Buck.
Buck slugged 20 home runs for the Blue Jays in 2010 and represents a legitimate offensive upgrade over the carousel of catchers that the Marlins employed this past year, but the 30-year-old backstop is a .243/.301/.421 career hitter and is likely to regress back to that poor career line.
His .335 BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play) suggests that luck had a whole lot to do with the numbers that he posted this past season and Miami’s Sun Life Stadium is not nearly as hitting friendly as Toronto’s Rogers Centre. On top of that, Buck hasn’t played more than 120 games in a season in his entire career.
There’s a chance that everything will work out just fine, but at the moment it appears that Marlins’ new starting catcher was overpaid both in salary and years.