Welcome, Russell Martin

The Pittsburgh Pirates and GM Neal "Smartest Guy in the Room" Huntington have struck quickly in the free agent market and signed catcher Russell Martin to a reported two year, $17 million deal.

What do I think about that?  Well, right off the bat, let's stipulate that Martin is not Johnny Bench.  We can also agree that it stinks that the Pirates do not have anyone in their developmental pipeline who can step in and be a solid, everyday, reasonably productive catcher.  That 2009 Number One draft pick Tony Sanchez is not, and may never be ready, to fulfill that role is symptomatic of one of the big problems of the NHR (Neal Huntington Regime), but ranting about THAT problem does not resolve the problem it has created, namely, who's going to don the tools if ignorance for the Bucs in 2013?

The free agent catcher market was very shallow this year, and in Martin the Pirates may have gotten the best of the lot.  He can hit for power (21 HR last year), but his batting average is not great (,211 last year) and his OPS (.713) is mediocre.   On the plus side, he threw out 24% of base runners attempting to steal last year.  (Come to think of it, compared to what Pirates catchers did in this department last year, this DOES make him Johnny Bench!)   Also, he will be only 30 years old when the season opens next year (by comparison, Rod Barajas was 36 when signed by the team last winter).

So, at this point in time, at least, Martin does represent an improvement over what the Pirates had last year, and yeah, I know that that is a very low bar to clear, but it is an improvement, nonetheless.  As I said, you can argue that the Pirates should have someone in the pipeline who is both a cheaper and better alternative, but they don't, so they have to do something about it, and they did.  We shall see how it turns out.

After reading lots of comments in the last several hours about this deal, I am struck by two things.  One thread wondered if the team consulted A.J. Burnett on this.  I would hope not.  Personally, I thought the whole "A.J. likes pitching to Barajas" thing was overblown last year.  If you are a good pitcher, which Burnett certainly proved to be last year, you can pitch to any catcher.  The other thread criticized the Pirates for "spending too much money" to sign Martin.  You can't have it both ways, folks - you can't lambaste the Pirates for being cheap and not spending money on payroll, and then criticize them when they do.

Anyway, we will all know soon enough if this is a good or bad signing for the Pirates.

Finally, I must confess to having a certain liking for Russell Martin.  In 2007, he was a member of my fantasy team, The Big Train, and in that magical season, the Big Train stormed to the Championship of the prestigious North Park League.  So - Welcome Home, Russell Martin!!!