Archive for Russell Martin

Last week, I reviewed my NFBC Draft Champions League results. I think some of my speculative saves (Joel Peralta early on; Adam Ottavino later on) could come to fruition, and I am pretty bullish on the depth of my rotation. I have a sundry of sleepers that could provide supplemental value: Daniel Norris, Randall Delgado, Jaime Garcia, Rafael Montero, Trevor Cahill and Robbie Erlin.

With that said, some of the feedback was helpful. I agree that based on my closing situation (among other things), I can’t possibly compete for the grand prize unless I get very lucky. I also do not have enough sure-thing starters to punt saves altogether to at least ensure a league win.

I don’t agree with a lack of depth on offense. I have CI/OF flexibility and a sundry of power (Justin Smoak, Travis Snider) and speed (Billy Burns, Jose Ramirez, Francisco Lindor) on the bench. My second catching slot is in question, but Caleb Joseph could provide some surprise value until Matt Wieters returns. I like Andrew Susac, but I need to hope for a Buster Posey or Brandon Belt injury.

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Let’s start with a multiple choice question.

1) Russell Martin has been lucky on the following balls-in-play type(s):

a) Grounders

b) Liners

c) Flies

d) at least Grounders and Flies

If you chose a) grounders, you would be wrong. If you chose d) flies, you would be wrong. If you chose b) liners, well… you could be partly right, however, the correct answer is d) at least grounders and flies. You could argue that there should be an e) option, ‘all of the above.’

According to Zach Sanders’ End of Season Catcher rankings, Russell Martin bamboozled his way into the top 10 at #7 overall and produced what would have been his 2nd best fantasy season if he approached 150+ games.

By bamboozled, I mean BABIP’ed.

Look at his 2014 ground ball, fly ball and line drive-related BABIP’s on each individual balls-in-play type in 2014 relative to his career; relative to 2013 (still with the Pirates); and relative to the mean if we considered his career rates as a one year performance:

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Russell Martin will no doubt be a part of an offseason of journalistic rear-view mirror celebration for Pittsburgh sports writers looking for something other than the Steelers to fill their columns. People will cite a career resurgence and his leadership and his defense and how valuable he was to his team. I get all that. But in fantasy circles, we sometimes have to have a colder heart than George Steinbrenner after double header losses and a bad day at the track.

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One of the biggest concerns at this time of year is whether or not your guy is going to play the same amount in September as he did during the previous five months of the season. Young pitchers deal with innings caps which cuts down on the number of starts while veterans on non-playoff teams run the risk of losing at-bats to the September call-ups. Given the fact that squatting behind the plate is the most physically taxing position, your catchers are no different. After five months of work behind the dish, some are, much to the chagrin of fantasy owners, in need of some time off whether they’re playoff-bound or not. Here are a few backstops who could see fewer at-bats in September… Read the rest of this entry »

In an effort to help you sniff out third base options should you still be waiting for David Freese to find his contacts, Jeff Keppinger to draw a walk, or Placido Polanco to do… anything — I’ve got a few ideas for you. They may not be good ideas, but they are ideas nonetheless, and third base has kind of necessitated the use of hairbrained thinking.

You might have already noticed this because it happened weeks ago, but Jose Bautista has three appearances at third base. Eligibility rules vary, but in Yahoo and Ottoneu formats, he only needs three more starts to qualify at third. In ESPN, he will need seven additional appearances.

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While you don’t normally put lofty expectations on your catchers to produce big-time fantasy numbers, the slow starts of players such as the Monteros, both Jesus and Miguel, as well as Salvador Perez, have been extremely frustrating for owners thus far. Knowing what they are capable of producing, no one wants to drop them from their roster, but there’s a definite need to pull them from the starting lineup and plug in a more productive option, even if just for a short time. If you have the bench space available to make such a move, then here are a couple of backstops who should be able to help you out. Don’t expect either to be your long term solution, but for right now, they’re worth a look. Read the rest of this entry »

Russell Martin hit a career-high 21 homers in 2012, backed by a .192 ISO that was eighth-best among catchers with 350 plate appearances. On the surface, that sounds like the mark of a pretty good season, yet Martin was ranked only 18^th in Zach Sanders’ end of season catcher rankings, behind even non-starters like Ryan Doumit, Jordan Pacheco, & Jesus Montero. He was behind Brian McCann, who suffered through the worst year of his career while fighting injury, and he was behind former teammate A.J. Ellis, who made a splash in Martin’s old home of Los Angeles.

You probably know where this is going: Sanders was in no way wrong to rank Martin as low as he did, even despite the power. In nearly every other way Martin has continued his freefall from his outstanding first few years in the bigs, and it’s difficult to see him rebounding at this point. Going back to the question Howard Bender asked here in February of “Should You Trust Russell Martin?”, well, no. Remember, this is how Bender phrased his worry about Martin after the catcher’s first year in the Bronx: Read the rest of this entry »

Just three weeks left to go in the regular season and all that hard work you’ve done over the last five-plus months will have finally paid off, so long as you’re staying on top of things.  And that means making the tough decisions at the end of the year.  Let’s face it…we’ve got great players that just aren’t producing right now and you need to make sure you fill in the blanks with guys who are.  Our own Michael Barr wrote a piece discussing the idea of cutting Brian McCann and then there are guys like Alex Avila who should have been cut even longer ago.  Even Matt Wieters is struggling to keep his average over the Mendoza line for the last 30 days.  If it’s a keeper league, you’ll probably have to bite the bullet.  But if it’s a re-draft league, it’s time to cut the dead weight and get a catcher in there that can help. Read the rest of this entry »

Even though the positional rankings aren;t being updated monthly, the tiers are, so let’s take a look at some of the movement amongst the catchers.  We saw a few things happen with the May tiers but I held back any extreme movement because of sample sizes and questions surrounding performance sustainability.  This month, guys are moving… Read the rest of this entry »

Talk about your run of bad luck…

Wilson Ramos signs with the Twins, forever to be blocked from a starting gig with Joe Mauer already in-house.  He gets traded to the Nationals who then decide that they’d rather have a marquee name like Ivan Rodriguez behind the plate.  So Ramos bides his time, earns more and more PT as the season progresses, and heads into the offseason, knowing that he will be the full-time catcher in 2012. Read the rest of this entry »