PORT ST. LUCIE — When the ginormous Marlins-Blue Jays trade went down last November, free-agent lefty reliever Randy Choate surveyed the damage and alerted his representatives Sam and Seth Levinson: Please see if Toronto wants me.
Partly because the long-ago Yankee Choate became friendly with fellow pitchers Mark Buehrle and Josh Johnson, both of whom went from Miami to Toronto in the deal, during their time together in South Florida. But also because Choate has never enjoyed working with a catcher as much as he did with John Buck.
“I think it’s a comfortability factor,” Choate, who wound up signing a three-year contract with St. Louis, said of Buck in a telephone interview. “Once you get that confidence rolling, you don’t have to worry. He takes care of the rest.”
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As it turns out, signing with Toronto to reunite with Buck would’ve been a mistake, as the Blue Jays quickly flipped the 32-year-old to the Mets in the R.A. Dickey trade. Buck’s new assignment is to hold the Mets’ catching job until Travis d’Arnaud, the jewel of the Dickey trade, finishes off his development. Buck can be a free agent after this season.
And while he’s around, the Mets would like to see his pitcher whispering skills in action.
“I’m really happy that we have a veteran catcher, because I think that the veteran catcher will help some of the younger guys. Both pitchers and catchers,” Mets CEO Fred Wilpon said last week. “I think that’s very important.”
“I think it’s absolutely necessary on a team for at least somebody within reach of the pitching staff who can do that. If you can have that as your starting catcher or on your catching staff, it’s all the more valuable,” Buck said at Tradition Field. “Sometimes, I go out there, I see the real emotion between me and him. I get to see that look in his eye where it looks like he’s looking like a deer in the headlights. And then when he goes down in the dugout and tries to act like a tough guy, I got to see the real [thing].”
Buck has small shoes to fill; his .644 OPS with Miami last year ranked him 13th of the 17 catchers who tallied at least 354 plate appearances and played at least 90 percent of their games at catcher. Josh Thole, who put up a .584 OPS with the Mets, placed dead last in that group. Thole went to Toronto with Dickey, whom he learned to catch capably, in the same trade.
So if Buck can pop a few homers — he has reached double figures each of his three prior seasons and seven of his nine big-league seasons — and be a defensive asset while d’Arnaud prepares himself, the Mets will gladly take that for $6 million.
“I was born a catcher,” Buck said jokingly. At age nine, in the Taylorsville, Utah, Little League, he grew to appreciate the job’s nuances. His coach Dave Gray taught him the mechanics of receiving and setting up properly.
“I loved, even at that age, being a part of the game that I could make the other team lose without even going to the plate,” Buck said. “I always thought that was cool.”
The Astros traded him to Kansas City as part of a package for Carlos Beltran in 2004, and working with so many young Royals pitchers sharpened his skills. Through his baseball travels, Buck compiles notes on hitters — from his own team as well as opponents — and files them on his iPad, which adds to his game preparation. He also has learned how to motivate pitchers.
New Mets pitcher Shaun Marcum put up arguably his best season in 2010 for Toronto — a 3.64 ERA in 195 1/3 innings — with Buck as his primary catcher.
“He’s not afraid to get in your face and let you know if you’re not doing something right,” Marcum said of Buck. “He’s very competitive and very fiery, so you’ve got to love that about him.”
It’s difficult for us civilians to quantify how much these skills translate into victories, but teams keep their own proprietary data and act upon it. The brilliant Rays started Jose Molina a team-leading 80 games at catcher last year because of his overall defensive greatness and despite his lack of offense and brought Molina back for 2013.
The Mets will get a chance to test this notion once more with Buck. And if it’s one and done in Flushing for the veteran? He’ll have plenty of new intelligence when he becomes a Mets opponent once again.