Free Danny Ardoin!

Mike Scioscia's Tragic Illness

By Mike Scioscia's tragic illness | August 20, 2008 at 8:08 AM | In Danny Ardoin | 10 Comments

Just kidding! That said... how much longer can we keep pretending that our Golden God, Russell Martin, isn't completely lost at the plate? I touched on this a few weeks ago when I posted some stats (without any further analysis) that included Martin's OPS by month. Let's take a closer look at his updated stats (and keep in mind, these don't even include his 0-4 with 2 strikeouts performance tonight. Why? Because I can't find any site that keeps OPS in real-time; all the biggies like ESPN and Yahoo! all update in the middle of the night, and I don't want to wait until tomorrow to post this. Thanks, guys!)

Russell Martin, OPS by month
April: .888
May: .851
June: .802
July: .738
August: .706

Last 28 days: .259 BA .689 OPS 1hr 6rbi

Seems like a pretty clear downward spiral to me. To make it simpler, in the first half, his OPS was .830. In the second half, it's .726. Even simpler? Before the break, he was Matt Kemp/Johnny Damon/Derrek Lee (the three guys currently closest to an .830 OPS on the year.) Since the break? He's Bengie Molina/Casey Kotchman/Christian Guzman. Ugh.

Now I want to make this clear right here and now: I'm in no way advocating the benching of Russell Martin, which I have done for other players at various times. Part of that is of course the fact that there's simply no other viable alternative, but that's not really the point. He's still a plus defender, he's still the heart of the team, and you still have the confidence that he'll turn it around. Besides, even a mediocre version of Russell Martin is still better than 80% of the rest of catchers in the bigs.

But the stats don't lie. He was excellent in April, and he's gotten worse every single month since. And, I'm going to add something completely unsabermetric here: he just looks bad. He's flailing badly at pitches, and frankly I've never seen him look so... Berroa-like. (That's right. Brett Tomko is the standard go-to of "pitchers who suck", and now we're making Angel Berroa his offensive equivalent. You may say "but Andruw Jones", but I'm avoiding him because he was so good for so long, and because his failings this year are just so goddamn depressing.)

So what's causing this? Well, I have a pretty popular theory to share here. I've already gotten my share of heat for being too anti-Torre around here lately, and this isn't going to help any, but: It's Joe Torre's fault. Riddle me this: the Dodgers have now played 125 games, after their loss to Colorado. Russell Martin has gotten into 122 of them. That's right, it's August 20th, and our catcher has had all of three games off this season. He's second in baseball in innings caught, with 975.1, behind only Jason Kendall. But the funny thing about that is that when Jason Kendall gets a day off? He gets a day off! No, when Torre decides to give Martin a day off behind the plate (which hasn't happened since August 8th, now) Martin heads down to third base.

Martin at third base is wrong on so many levels. It's not that he embarrasses himself out there; on the contrary, he's been more than passable on defense. The first time, it was a fun diversion. The second time, it still had some novelty value. And every time since? It just makes me scream, "let your workhorse catcher rest, Joe!" How hard is it to see that Martin is wearing down yet again? It's true that with LaRoche in Pittsburgh, DeWitt in Las Vegas, Nomar having to play shortstop, and Pablo Ozuna being Pablo Ozuna, the Dodgers don't really have a backup third baseman right now. But that's not a reason to abuse your catcher. And isn't that yet another reason why Chin-Lung Hu should be up to play some shortstop and let Nomar play some third if you have to give Casey Blake a rest?

Oddly enough, we were concerned about Martin's defense at third base, but when he plays there he simply cannot hit, with a .200/.323/.200 line and zero extra base hits. Perhaps he's concentrating too much on his new position? And doesn't that completely defeat the purpose of keeping his bat in the lineup?

The problem now is that with every game so vitally important, Torre is less likely to want to pencil in "Ardoin" into his lineup. It's not that I really want to see Danny Ardoin, either. But if you want to have any chance down the stretch and hopefully further, you're going to need your All-Star catcher to get it turned around.

So let's make it real simple, Joe:

1) Make sure Martin actually gets some days off. Especially in the dog days of a hot August. Ardoin's only started 5 games since the beginning of July, and that's simply not enough.

2) Days off are days off! This works on two levels, because first and foremost, enough of this "days off at third base" BS. He can't hit when he plays there, and it's not a true day off. But nearly as important, of the eleven games Ardoin has started, he's only finished five of them - and one of those, Martin was playing the whole way at third base. What this means is that even when Torres says "he's getting a day off at third", half the time Martin ends up behind the plate anyway when Ardoin is hit for late in games. This is simply unacceptable.

I don't think Joe's blind to the issue, since he did hit Martin all the way down at 8th in the lineup last week, but that's not really the problem. Let's just hope Joe sees the real problem before it's too late - if it's not already.

- Mike Scioscia's tragic illness

- Mike Scioscia's tragic illness

Discussion

10 Comments on "Free Danny Ardoin!"

Posted by Fire Ned Colletti Now, August 20, 2008 2:57 PM

To help with the unsabermetric point, he "looks" bad because he's striking out A LOT more recently. As for my own "unsabermetric" point, it looks a lot like he's struggling with any breaking ball below the zone.
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Every year, the Dodgers' manager lets Martin continue to play every game he can. Every year, Martin wears down at the end of the year from abuse.
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I don't understand it.

Posted by Gibbys Limp, August 20, 2008 3:46 PM

Before the season started, Torre admitted that he heard what a workhorse Martin is & repeated several times that Russell would sit more games this year than he did last, despite how much resistance Martin gave him.

The first time he sat, we read about how unhappy Martin was about it, but Joe reiterated how important it was to keep his STUD fresh for the entire year.

Once Torre tried his hand at throwing Russ out at 3B, he defended it with a statement that "It's still a day off mentally for a player."

A mental day off at 3B may be all fine and dandy, but what about the physical aspect of playing in every single game but 3 this year? It's one thing for a guy like Loney to play nearly every game (he's played in all but, what, 1 game?), but Martin's job is just a bit more strenuous - mind, body (& soul) to trot him out onto the field, be it behind the plate or at third, day-in & day-out, regardless of whether he's getting a mental day off here or there.

With the upcoming schedule against sub-.500 teams (apparently) to our advantage for a playoff push, we can afford to sit Martin one ENTIRE game a week every other week, and still succeed, can't we??

Posted by Erich, August 20, 2008 6:30 PM

I think his next day off will probably be the Thursday day game (was the last mid-week game, I think against the White Sox, was his last day off?) before the road trip. I can't see him sitting during the critical Phillies series, but after that I bet he'll get a few days off.

Simply put, we didn't have the bats before to make benching Martin a decent possibility. Now we do, and Torre should take care of business.

Posted by Mike Scioscia's tragic illness, August 20, 2008 7:00 PM

Well said, Erich - there's been plenty of points over the last 2+ seasons where Martin was not only our best offensive weapon, he was our ONLY effective weapon. Now's a great time to say "you don't have to carry this offense on your shoulders anymore."

Posted by Erin, August 21, 2008 2:00 AM

Check out tonight's lineup...

Pierre, CF
Kemp, RF
Kent, 2B
Manny, LF
Nomar, SS
Blake, 1B
Martin, 3B
Ardoin, C
Billingsley, P

Posted by Erin, August 21, 2008 3:49 AM

Scully just said that Torre said Russell is not tired, because his bat speed is not missing a beat. Torre just thinks Martin is "overanxious."

Posted by Clay, August 21, 2008 3:51 AM

And Martin hits a double as if to personally invalidate this entire post.

Posted by Mike Scioscia's tragic illness, August 21, 2008 4:01 AM

I suppose if Torre really wants to get Loney a break against lefthanders, this is preferable to letting Berroa play SS with Nomar at 1B.

I still don't like the "Martin at 3B" idea, though. This had better not count as his "offday", especially with a cross country road trip coming up.

Posted by Mike Scioscia's tragic illness, August 21, 2008 5:15 AM

Two errors on Martin at 3B tonight and one on Blake at 1B... GREAT IDEA.

#10

Posted by Dodger fan, August 21, 2008 5:17 AM

Martin just shouldn't be playing 3rd base, period. He should be sitting on the bench. This poor guy didn't even get to rest during the All-Star break, he was the only Dodger still working! And he's struggling to make the plays from 3rd to 1st, something that should be a given. Sigh.