Buck announced his retirement from baseball on Thursday. Buck has elected to take the season off to spend more time with his family, rather than compete for a spot providing depth at catcher with the Braves. He'll finish an 11-year career with a .234 average and 134 long balls.

Buck has agreed to a minor league deal with an invite to spring training with the Braves, MLB.com's Mark Bowman reports. Christian Bethancourt is a defensive savant, but may not be able to reliably hit big league pitching, and his backup, A.J. Pierzynski is 38 and got on base at a .288 clip last year. Buck at least gives the Braves a third option who is ready for the big leagues if the need should arise, although he will probably be sent to Triple-A to start the season.

Buck has elected free agency. Designated for assignment by the Angels earlier this week, Buck is now free to seek other employment opportunities after declining his outright assignment to Triple-A. Experienced catching depth is always in demand, but the 34-year-old Buck is little more than organizational filler at this point in his career.

The Angels designated Buck for assignment Tuesday. Buck appeared in just five games with the Angels in September, after being cut loose by Seattle during the All-Star break. All in all, the journeyman went 20-for-89 with three extra-base hits to lower his career batting line in the majors to .234/.301/.398.

Buck was called up from Triple-A Salt Lake on Tuesday, Alden Gonzalez of MLB.com reports. Hank Conger and Chris Iannetta were the only two catchers on the team's 40-man roster prior to Buck's selection. The 34-year-old put together a respectable .294/.370/.412 batting line in 33 games with Salt Lake, but he'll merely provide veteran depth over the final month.

Angels signed C John Buck to a minor league contract; assigned him to Triple-A Salt Lake. Buck will stay in the American League West after being cut loose by the Mariners earlier this month. The veteran backstop batted just .226/.293/.286 in 92 plate appearances for the M's before being released. He'll give the Angels some veteran depth and figures to come up in September as the club's third catcher.

Mariners released C John Buck. Buck was designated for assignment by the M's last week after batting .226/.293/.286 in 92 plate appearances. The 34-year-old catcher is now a free agent and should latch on with a new organization pretty quickly, though he probably won't find regular playing time.

Mariners designated catcher John Buck for assignment. Buck was hitting .226/.293/.286 with one homer in 84 at-bats this season, but that isn't exactly far off what the Mariners should have expected from him. It's also no worse than what they can count on from his likely internal replacement, Jesus Sucre. Sucre was hitting .281/.299/.368 with two homers in 171 at-bats in Triple-A. Perhaps the Mariners are planning a George Kottaras pickup after he was DFA'd by the Indians. Otherwise, this seems pretty pointless for them.

John Buck went 3-for-4 with two runs scored in Sunday's win over the Astros. Buck doubled twice among his three hits, and he added an RBI single in the eighth inning. Buck has a .300 average while playing sparingly behind Mike Zunino this season.

Mariners signed C John Buck to a one-year, $1 million contract. CBS Sports' Jon Heyman passed along the contract terms. The 33-year-old Buck is expected to serve as Mike Zunino's backup in 2014 and gives the Mariners a right-handed power threat off the bench.