Where Is Russ Martin’s Power?
Russell Martin was on top of the baseball world not long ago. Thought of as one of the best young catchers in baseball, Martin was the face of the Los Angeles Dodgers youth movement, at least until Manny Ramirez stepped onto the scene. At this point Martin might be asking himself who pulled the extension cord out of the wall on his bat, because the power is gone.
Despite nearly identical BABIP, Martin’s ISO is almost half of 2008’s total. The leading reason seems to be a reduced number of home runs per fly ball hit. Last year about 9% of Martin’s fly balls went for home runs, this year less than 4% are landing in the bleachers. This is peculiar because Martin is A) hitting more line drives than before, B) hitting about the same number of fly balls, C) still making the same amount of contact, and D) not at the age where you would expect the average player to lose his pop.
But Martin isn’t the average player, he’s a catcher, a full time one on top of that. He’s started 135+ games behind the plate the past two years and should break the 100 starts mark on the season this week. Still, if you glance at the ISO leaderboard for catchers with 200+ plate appearances, the bottom five are (in descending order) Koyie Hill, Yadier Molina, Ryan Hanigan, Martin, and Jason Kendall; meaning he appears to carry the light stick even amongst players with the same bumps and bruises.
HitTracker’s numbers don’t speak too well for the homers Martin has hit either. The three have an average distance of 394.3 feet; in 2008 his home runs went about three feet further; in 2007 about 14 feet further. I’m willing to accept that he’s not a 405+ feet home run hitter, but I do think he’s going to start hitting more than three of every 100 fly balls out of the park during any given season.
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Sounds like steriods.
I know what happened to his power. I’m sort of kidding. With the way things are in baseball, it’s hard not to be a little suspicious. The only other catcher I can find with a quick search who suffered a similiar decline would be Jason Kendall as his isolated power was cut in half between his age 27 and 29 seasons. However, that was likely due to a serious thumb injury. Perhaps Martin is hurt and is not telling anyone?
I have no idea what happened to his power, all I know is I hope it never comes back…
I watched batting practice before the Dodgers-Dbacks game on Friday and Martin came about 2 ft. from putting a ball in the Friday’s restaurant at Chase Field (440 ft. or so). I think his power is still there, but something is going on in his head when game time rolls around.
427 Games, 3507 Innings behind the plate to start his career maybe?
Anyway, surprised you didn’t mention the fact that last years ISO was cut nearly as much as well.
.179 ISO in 2007
.116 ISO in 2008 (-.063)
.058 ISO in 2009 (-.058)
And actually, you can clearly see this
.186 ISO 1st half 2007
.163 ISO 2nd half 2007
.142 ISO 1st half 2008
.76 ISO 2nd half 2008
.56 ISO 1st half 2009
.62 ISO 2nd half 2009
The real cut can clearly be seen in the middle of 2008, not starting this season.
Suck it Russell Martin
People really need to start looking at the way Don Mattingley coaches hitters. His approach has been great to get Matt Kemp to be a more disciplined hitter, but I don’t think it has helped others that much. Andre Ethier’s power projections have always been low given his swing and frame. He seemed to figure that out last year. The two who have been truly ruined by the change in hitting regimes are Martin and James Loney. Loney looked like he was turning into a true 25 HR threat after 2007 and was praised for having the best approach to hitting of any Dodger. Then Mattingley came in with his style, which seems to be “look at pitches even if they are good ones to hit”, and it turned Loney into a deer in headlights who doesn’t follow through on his swing. One can even trace Martin’s power outage, which started around mid-season last year, to Mattingley’s rejoining the team. Martin started taking hanging breaking balls and first pitch fastballs down the middle that he used to deposit. He also stopped using the short-whip like swing that had served him so well and started upper cutting more. If anything, based on what has been said in interviews, perhaps Joe Torre should be personally working with Martin on his hitting because he seems to recognize what has gone on.
it does seem pretty plausible that there are types of hitters, and types of coaches, and only those of corresponding type work well together–another one of those millions of things that MLB clubs could try: why not hire four hitting coaches and let players choose? it’s not like they cost much…..