How convenient

While listening to the Dodgers' blatantly-homer, yes-man postgame show, my thoughts naturally turned to today's hero, Russell Martin. I've spent a lot of time over the last couple of days lamenting the premature decline of what was once a promising career; after I heaped half the blame for the Dodgers' 3-2 loss to the Cardinals last night on his throwing error in the 9th inning, Martin went and made me look temporarily foolish tonight by grand-slamming L.A. to a 7-3 win over the Cubs. (In case you're wondering, 30 percent of the blame went to Clayton Kershaw for his poor start, 10 percent went to Jonathan Broxton for blowing the game following Martin's error, and 10 percent went elsewhere, obviously. This is all very scientific.)

Where the post-game show, Martin, and my lamenting come together is in the commentators' now-trite prediction that tonight's grand slam could prove the turning point in the catcher's season (.261 avg/.362 OBP/.685 OPS with 3 HR and 34 RBI before tonight). Unfortunately, I just don't think it's going to happen this year, and it wouldn't surprise me if he never turned it around. Do the math on that OPS, and you'll figure a slugging percentage of .323: he's become a singles hitter of Cesar Izturis proportions (no, really: check it out). Losing 70 points in slugging in two straight seasons will understandably set off the roider flag for a lot of people, but I honestly think we can attribute the power decline to the sheer volume of innings he's caught since coming up in 2006. It's not like his former home runs have started to fall dead at the warning track--he's almost a pure groundball hitter now, and while he still has a very good eye, he's got a much slower bat.

Martin's worn down, his workload both culminating in and exemplified by his appearance in the 2008 All-Star Game, when he caught 10 innings despite the fact that Brian McCann was still available. Ten innings in the ALL-STAR GAME for a guy whose only "rest" the previous two seasons consisted of switching to third base for a few innings here and there. Obviously, those 10 innings didn't do him in all on their own, but I remember feeling angry at the time and thinking it was a perfect encapsulation of the way his managers have abused him. This was a purely observational opinion, but the good folks at Fan Graphs recently provided statistical vindication. (If you don't regularly read Fan Graphs ..., stop reading this, and go read Fan Graphs.)

Overusing Russell Martin quickly became one of the consistencies between the tenures of Grady Little and Joe Torre, and under those two managers, Martin has caught the most innings in the majors since his call-up. I remember Torre using John Flaherty a lot more often behind Jorge Posada with the Yankees during my college years; a logical explanation would seem to be lack of confidence in Martin's backups, but Torre sure gave a lot of at-bats to guys like Mark Sweeney without any proof of performance last year. Now that the Dodgers have a viable back-up catcher in Brad Ausmus for the first time since David Ross's fluke year supporting Paul LoDuca in 2003, Martin has rested a bit more this year (fifth in at-bats among catchers going into tonight), but I don't think he can uncatch all of those innings, and I don't think I'm alone among Dodger fans who would have rather taken their lumps with Toby Hall, Mike Lieberthal, and Danny Ardoin once every 10 days than have to see our young all-star worn down so quickly.

What can the Dodgers do about it, though? Russell's one of my favorites--I'm half-Mexican, and we Mexican girls love our Dodgers catchers--but his performance has dropped off to what I think is such an irreparable level that I wouldn't be completely sorry to see him go. Unfortunately, the Ned Colletti Brain Trust threw the Dodgers' best catching prospect into the Casey Blake trade last year instead of paying $2M more of Blake's salary, and because Carlos Santana is now the top prospect in the Indians organization, I'm bracing for a lot more dead worms in the Dodger Stadium infield for the foreseeable future. At least Torre has finally stopped confusing Matt Kemp for Martin and batting Kemp eighth.