SURPRISE, Ariz. -- Just kicking something around here, but what about the Royals signing Ivan Rodriguez?
They are overloaded at catcher already, one of several reasons this is such pure speculation that even calling it "a longshot" would be dishonest. But you can make a good case for it.
Disclosure here, I hadn't thought of the Royals and Pudge until a friend brought it up. You should know that my friend throws out all kinds of ridiculous scenarios. Wants the Royals to sign Barry Bonds, Moises Alou, or trade for Bobby Crosby.
So maybe the Pudge thing just sounds close to reasonable in the context of his really dumb ideas, but how about this:
The Royals have committed to Miguel Olivo being their primary catcher, and are convinced that Brayan Pena won't clear waivers, so they need to trade him or John Buck.
Our Bob Dutton has already told us that teams are keeping tabs on the Royals' catcher situation to see what they could or should give up in a trade.
What if the Royals got what they could for Pena and Buck both? Probably won't be much. A low-level prospect, perhaps. With Buck set to earn $2.9 million, it might be tough.
But Buck's contract is not fully guaranteed, so another possibility would be to release him, save more than 80 percent of the money because it's an arbitration deal, and use it on Pudge -- who would need to swallow some pride, ignore some Boras, and sign for about $2 million.
Even that part of it is unlikely because there are teams in much more need of a catcher than the Royals, and teams (like the Mets) who would likely be willing to spend more than the Royals.
But in a hypothetical, not-gonna-happen-but-lets-talk-about-it-anyway sort of way, it's intriguing. At this point in Pudge's career (and, cough-cough, MLB's drug-testing policies) he's not playing at an All-Star level. But he is a Hall of Famer, and he has the experience and smarts of 18 seasons working with pitchers.
You get a future Hall of Famer with a terrific reputation of working with pitchers, the experience of being a key player on winning teams, and he still has a good arm.
There is some real downside to losing Buck. Based on the e-mails I get, some of you probably laugh at that, but it's true. Among Kansas City fans, Buck probably suffers from being a key part of the Carlos Beltran trade and never (at least not yet) playing at an All-Star level.
He strikes out too much, walks too rarely, doesn't hit enough home runs and is statistically one of the easiest catchers in baseball to steal bases on.
But it's a huge point on his resume that Gil Meche and Zack Greinke -- the Royals with the most guaranteed dollars coming their way -- rave about throwing to Buck.
It's not by accident that Meche has made 60 of his 68 starts for the Royals with Buck as his catcher.
Greinke was actually more effective against batters when throwing to Olivo last year, but goes out of his way to talk about how much he likes throwing to Buck.
If you trade or release Buck, you risk losing an important comfort factor with perhaps the two most valuable players on the team. You also lose one of the respected voices in the clubhouse.
These things don't show up in stats, and they may or may not be dismissed by baseball's stats world, but they are important for a team like the Royals.
These things are part of why I would hold on to both Olivo and Buck.
But I can also see why some would have a wandering eye for Pudge.
* Bonus link and thought: Dayton Moore isn't saying anything, of course, but there sure does seem to be a lot of smoke around the Teahen-to-Yankees thought.
Most rumors that reach this stage do not happen. We should all keep that in mind.
If you can get past Teahen's salary, he is set to be very valuable for the Royals. There are probably 400 at bats for him this season. He's the primary backup at three positions, will probably be able to play 2B at times, and if he pushes Ross Gload off the roster, would be the team's best defensive 1B.
So the Royals shouldn't just give him away.
And the Yankees, despite their Yankee-ness, and despite competing with the Red Sox and Rays in a brutal division, don't necessarily NEED to replace A-Rod with a trade, as Cliff Corcoran points out here.
One thought I've heard from someone smart and in baseball is that the Yankees will either stay status quo and go with the in-house Cody Ransom or trade for "a real" third baseman, someone like Adrian Beltre.
The more I think about it, the more I think that'd be a mistake. But that's above my pay grade.
Either way, the best outcome for the Royals would be the Yankees signing Mark Grudzielanek and moving Robinson Cano to 3B temporarily. That would have the Royals keeping Teahen and gaining an extra draft pick as compensation for Grud declining arbitration.
Wasn't he supposed to be horrible with pitchers while he was in Texas? I heard that all the time.
Catchers, in terms of "working with pitchers" are like managers, unless they're truly insane, none of it really matters. It's all noise.