After Wednesday’s victory over the Blue Jays, Alex Rodriguez is batting .287/.360/.503 with nine home runs. The once washed-up, no-power, surgically repaired Russell Martin is hitting .266/.370/.504 with nine home runs. Russell Martin has gotten off to a better start (albeit slightly) than A-Rod. How did this happen? Can he keep it up?
The quick answer is probably not. Martin’s AVG and OBP are most certainly sustainable. He has a career .272 AVG and .365 OBP. Those numbers are right where we want them to be. The outlier is the SLG. Martin is hitting for some serious power, astounding power when you consider that he has a career .403 SLG. This suggests that as the season progresses Martin’s hits will keep up at the same pace, but fewer of them will find the seats. The question then becomes, how large will the tail off be?
On the off chance Martin does keep up his current power surge, then 2011 would far and away be the best season of his career. Prior to this year, Martin’s best season was 2007. That year he hit 19 home runs with a stat line of .293/.374/.469, good for a 116 OPS+ and a .368 wOBA. Currently he has a 140 OPS+ and a .392 wOBA. If the 2007 that the then-24-year-old Martin put up is his season-long ceiling, he’s due for a correction, but not a complete end in production.
Martin may be benefitting from a one-size-fits-all approach that opposing teams are taking against the Yankee hitters. In his post on Wednesday, fellow Yankee Analyst William J. shows data that suggest the Yankees are seeing more and more off-speed pitches this season than in seasons past. That’s the only way you’re going to get out Curtis Granderson and Mark Teixeira, but its the exact wrong approach to take with Martin.
Unusual for a big leaguer, Martin is actually negative against fastballs this year, by quite a bit. According to Fangraphs (excluding Wednesday’s game) Martin has been worth -4.2 runs already this season against the fastball. Against the slider, cutter and curveball, however — pitches Larry might call Yankee-kryptonite (Editor’s Note: Particularly if they are thrown by a southpaw) — Martin is raking. He’s already worth 2.2 runs against the cutter and the curve, and 0.7 runs against the slider. These are impressive totals for such an early part of the season, particularly for Martin. Prior to this season, 2008 was the only year he was above average against the cutter. That year he was worth 1.2 runs against the pitch … all season.
This suggests to me that teams aren’t thinking of Martin when they strategize about how to beat the Yankees. Instead, they’re assuming the Mark Teixeira approach works against him as well, and he’s punishing teams for it. The data back this up. He’s seen only 54.2% fastballs this season, down from 57.9% for his career.
The oddity is that this is the first season Martin has ever been good against the slow stuff and bad against the fastball. For his career he has been worth 32 runs against the fastball, and has been negative against the slider and cutter and just about neutral against the changeup and the curveball. This is a big reason why the data suggest his performance will tail off. A lousy slider or cutter is pretty much a meat-ball fastball. If Martin is pounding those two pitches, but struggling against the fastball, it suggests his bat is slower than it seems. If teams make the adjustment against Martin, they will find it easier to get him out. For all our sakes, let’s hope the opposition keeps on focusing on Robinson Cano and Tex.
Russell Martin is already one of my favorite Yankees right now. I love the way he handles himself on the field. He’s a solid defensive catcher, who swings a great bat, and just looks tough as nails out there. I know he speaks French, but don’t mess with him! He’s also been one of the biggest surprises of the season so far. While I believe his power will begin to wane as the season progresses, I don’t believe he’ll end the year with an SLG much below .460. No matter how you slice the numbers, Martin has been one of Brian Cashman’s best signings and one of this season’s most pleasant surprises.
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4 Responses to Russell Martin: Beast!
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TIQ IQ
girardi needs to keep him fresh .rest one day next day DH.every fifth day.he will not break down.
His injury history is definitely something Girardi needs to monitor. Although it does look like the Yankees have been resting him a bit lately.
I too am a huge Martin booster, Mike, but disagree his power numbers cannot be sustained, for two reasons: one, his age: he’s just now entering what would be considered anybody’s most productive years as a hitter. And two, the nature of his prior injuries – and particularly the oft-mentioned torn labrum — were of the type related to singular events and not the result of any long-term deterioration and can be reasonably expected to have healed perfectly with no residual effects or degradation.
The broken wrist thing, I think, speaks for itself. As for his labrum surgery, see the passage below from the LA media at the time of his DL assignment:
“Martin’s injury is different from the hip injury that caused New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez to miss the first month of the 2009 season because Martin’s injury is traumatic, meaning it occurred as the result of a single incident, where Rodriguez’s was degenerative, meaning it occurred over time.
Martin’s injury also is different from the hip injury that ended both the baseball and football careers of Bo Jackson because in Jackson’s case, the ball of his hip joint was pushed up into the labrum and socket so forcefully that it also severed the vessel supplying blood to the joint, causing vascular necrosis. Because Martin didn’t experience vascular necrosis, once he has fully healed, his hip should be as good as new.”
Also, he admitted candidly before the season started after he was released by LA to monumentally poor work and rehab habits when he was still tripping the LA nightlife on the arm of his headcase Canadian grunge-groupie model girlfriend. All reports since ST have been the guy’s beastliness extends to his work ethic and he is without question in line for hardest worker on the team award as well. I just can’t say enough about how lucky we were to take a flier on him. I’d bet there isn’t a single team in the league right now — Twins included — who wouldn’t at least consider trading us straight up for this guy locked into a long-term contract. And if anybody ever does make such an offer, I hope to heaven we’re not stupid enough to take them up on it.
I think your headline here is absolutely correct, Mike, and I truly believe his beastliness will not only continue and develop further, but he may prove to be the most significant free-agent signing anywhere in baseball this season, not to mention our catcher of the future, an All-Star and a front-runner for the league’s comeback player of the year (that is, of course, if Colon and Garcia don’t finish out the season like they began it.)
[...] I concluded that Martin’s numbers would deflate. I predicted he would finish the season with an SLG around .460. After Sunday’s game Martin is batting .227/.330/.375. A .460 SLG is a dream. What [...]