Terrible Card Tuesday: 2016 Russell Martin

When Scott Fennessy rolled a 33 on catcher Russ Martin against me at last weekend’s Illowa APBA League weekend, I cringed.  I thought for sure, Russ banged out an rbi double.  Fortunately for me, I had a B pitcher going and it was an out.  My curiosity was piqued though and I asked to see his card and took the above photo.

This is not what I expected from a four-time All-Star.  I had forgotten about Martin’s rough year with Toronto in 2016.  This looks more like Yan Gomes’ 2016 card and not the former IAL first round pick.

Season Totals
Split G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB BB SO BA OBP SLG
2016 Totals 137 535 455 62 105 16 0 20 74 2 64 148 .231 .335 .398

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

Generated 9/12/2017.

To be fair, 2016 Russ Martin is a Catcher-9 which is a rarity. On top of that, he has four 14s and a 42 which even a Z pitcher can’t stop.

Yet somehow, rollers for Martin are to coax 20 homers from this card in 535 plate appearances and I’m not sure if they can do that.  Martin’s .231 batting average will be easier to replicate if he faces more C and D pitchers rather than A or B pitchers since he has the 8-8-8-8-9-9 combination.  That extra 8 will make the difference.

That said, Martin’s 31-36 and 51-38 are pretty painful.

Looking ahead, Martin’s numbers for 2017 (.223/.354/.381) are pretty similar to 2016 (.231/.335/.398) so don’t look for any drastic improvements on his card.

Thomas Nelshoppen

I am an IT consultant by day and an APBA media mogul by night. My passions are baseball (specifically Illini baseball), photography and of course, APBA. I have been fortunate to be part of the basic game Illowa APBA League since 1980 as well as the BBW Boys of Summer APBA League since 2014. I am slogging through a 1966 NL replay and hope to finish before I die.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.