Please Keep Martin Behind The Plate

I've recently noticed some rumblings from the fans and the media about moving Russell Martin to third base permanently in the near future, and I can't help but question the sanity of those people.

For example, Peter Gammons notes that some people in the Dodgers' organization might be open to moving Martin.

"Russell Martin may have slid backward, and had his attention to the defensive preparation called into question, but he remains a tremendous talent who wants to play every day, and his workload may have impacted his attention to game preparation. There has been some talk that the Dodgers may go after a Varitek or a pitcher-oriented catcher, which would free Martin from behind the plate and take his athleticism to third base, where the coaches feel he could also be an All-Star, a move Torre, Todd Zeile and Craig Biggio all made successfully."

First of all, while even I can admit that Martin has taken a noticeable step backwards defensively, I think it's way overblown because of his caught stealing percentage. Yes, it's low, but he also has one of the worst staffs in the league at holding baserunners. There's maybe 1 or 2 guys who are below average at holding runners on. The rest? They're terrible. I'm pretty sure Ricky Henderson could steal both 2nd and 3rd off Lowe in one pitch.

Secondly, just the mention that the Dodgers might go after another old, multi-year contract seeking, broken down piece of shit is sickening. Do I even need to explain why putting a terrible hitting old motherfucker behind the plate, and moving Martin's bat to a spot where it's less valuable, is a terrible idea? For fucks sake, Varitek might end up hitting below the Mendoza Line before this year is done.

Okay, so just sign a catcher who's better than Varitek then, right? Well, as nice as that would be, please don't say that the other options available are much better.

Here's a list of the catchers who will hit the free agent market: Rod Barajas, Johnny Estrada, Adam Melhuse, Ivan Rodriguez, David Ross, Javier Valentin, Jason Varitek, and Vance Wilson.

Does anybody out there really fucking think that signing any one of those douches to the contracts they want is a good idea? Seriously, the thought of the Dodgers signing Ivan Rodriguez or Rod Barajas to a 3-year 27 million dollar contract makes me want to strangle little children.

And all of this is because the Dodgers apparently can't find a suitable option at third base, right? Well...uh...how about the guy they have now? Look, i'm no huge fan of Casey Blake and his stone golem defense. However, while he's not a great offensive third baseman, his OPS the last 3 years are better than Martin's. Also, is there any real guarantee that Martin can stay healthy at third and that his defense is going to be above average? There are way too many question marks to even consider this.

Finally, are Biggio, Zeile and Torre the best 3 examples Gammons could find? Doesn't that say something about how the moves usually work out? To quote Bill James:

"I've been a baseball fan a long time. Moves like that always fail."

To the point, Torre is the only real example of a conversion success. Yes, Biggio was a full-time catcher for about 3 seasons, but the 1-time All-Star behind the plate was pretty much a hack defensively anyway. As far as Zeile goes, I don't even know why he's mentioned. He didn't even spend one season as a full-time catcher in the bigs before he scrapped that and moved to third.

So basically, none of this should apply to Martin. Neither Zeile nor Biggio had the defensive chops that Martin does, and neither of them were nearly as accomplished at catcher as Martin is. At the very least, Martin is a top 5 catcher in the majors, and to move that kind of player anywhere else toes the line between crazy and insane.

Some people speculate that a move to third base would prevent Martin from declining so steeply late in the year, but what does that really have to do with moving to third? Instead of torpedoing his offensive value by moving him to third base, why not just find a manager with the balls to tell Martin to sit the fuck down on the bench like normal catchers do? Oh right, because it's the Dodgers.