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Russell Martin is a very good catcher, but it can certainly be argued that he has taken a step back this season. His power numbers will be down across the board, and he hasn’t been quite as airtight behind the dish, either.  That, combined with his surprisingly effective work at third base and the incredible workload he’s had over the last two seasons has fueled speculation that the Blue might move Martin out from behind the dish, perhaps even as early as next season through a trade or free agency… Jason Varitek anyone?  If Ned Colletti is still around to make decisions this winter, a guy like Varitek, a veritable institution in Boston (though not nearly the player he was four or five seasons back) the more cynical among us would certainly fit the profile of guys he likes to bring on board (i.e. old, battle tested, and not necessarily very good any more).

Varitek probably amounts to idle chatter, but the idea of moving Martin might not be.  With that in mind, the folks at Mike Scioscia’s Tragic Illness take a look at the consequences, and give five great reasons why the Dodgers should seriously consider holding off…

 1) He’s not been as good this year because he’s been overworked. We’ve been over this point ad nauseum around here lately, so I won’t go through it again. Basically, he can still be a good catcher. He just needs to have his workload decreased a little so that he can get the rest he obviously needs.

2) He’s not nearly as valuable as a third baseman. An enormous part of Martin’s value is the simple fact that he’s got a useful bat coming from a position where it’s incredibly difficult to find one. His bat simply does not play as well at third base as it does at catcher. So instead of having the 5th-best catcher in baseball, we’d have what, a middle of the pack offensive third baseman? You can’t use VORP to compare the two since that’s position-specific, so let’s use Marginal Lineup Value, which is not position-based and, as defined by Baseball Prospectus, is “an estimate of the additional number of runs a given player will contribute to a lineup that otherwise consists of average offensive performers.” Martin’s .079 is 7th among catchers with at least 200 at-bats, but is only 15th among similar third baseman. How’s that an upgrade?

3) It makes the Casey Blake deal even worse. Not that he would have been ready to jump to the bigs in 2009 anyway, but one of the only saving graces about the terrible Casey Blake deal is that it might have been okay to lose Carlos Santana since we were already going to have Martin at the position for years to come. All of a sudden the great depth you have at a thin position is down to… Lucas May, who’s hitting .230 with a .294 OBP in AA Jacksonville. Now what was once a strong position is totally barren, which leads us to the next point…

4) Who are you going to replace him with at catcher in 2009? The free-agent catching prospects are a barren wasteland of the elderly and infirm, registered members of the International Fraternity of Backup Catchers, and journeymen Quad-A types who never panned out. Seriously, who are we looking at here? 37-year-old Ivan Rodriguez, currently dying a slow death in the Bronx? Jason LaRue? Old friend Paul LoDuca?

No, friends, no. Martin is not without his flaws. But moving him to third base weakens the team greatly at two positions. So let’s just hope that this is nothing but the rantings of a reporter who so dearly misses Manny-time.

MSTI admits that some of these points are reasonably obvious, but it’s often the most logical and salient points that get lost in these sorts of conversations.  Martin must be preserved! people say, but that doesn’t mean he has to become a third baseman.  10-15 more days off a year might do the trick.  And it’s a common problem for fans and baseball execs alike- especially around the trade deadline- to forget that all transactions are a two way street.  Let a free agent walk and he needs to be replaced.  Move a player to another position, and his old spot needs to be filled.

This post makes a very solid argument that the best way to save Russell Martin’s future might not be by exchanging his catcher’s mitt for an infielder’s glove, but simply by getting a better backup backstop.

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