C · 2019

Russell Martin

Los Angeles Dodgers National League WestC

Age: 36
B/T: R/R
Height: 5' 10"
Weight: 215 lb
Number: #55

Born: February 15, 1983 in East York, ON, Canada
MLB debut: May 5, 2006

dbWAR: 10.7
PA: 249
AVG: .220
OBP: .337
SLG: .330
wRC+: 86

Russell Martin is a catcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers. In 2019 he hit 6 home runs and knocked in 20 RBIs, notching 46 hits across 249 plate appearances in 81 games. His batting average was .220, 12.7% lower than the league average of .252. He reached base at a .337 clip and slugged .330, for an OPS of .667, 11.9% lower than the league mark of .758 — the second worst on his team, and 353rd of 451 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 88.9 mph off the bat, hit 37.6% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 5.3% of them and made contact on 73.0% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 86 wRC+ puts his offence 14% below average. That comes to 0.7 dbWAR — -5.2 runs with the bat, +0.0 on the bases, +4.2 for the position he plays, against replacement level. It includes no fielding: defensive runs are proprietary and are not estimated here, so the figure credits playing a demanding position but not playing it well.

League context

Percentile among qualified batters, 2019.

wRC+86

wOBA.298

ISO.110

BB%12.0%

WAR.7

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2019. These four terms sum to +7.4 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.


2019	81	249	46	6	20	1	30	60	.220	.337	.330	.110	.276	12.0%	24.1%	.298	-5.2	86	0.7
2018	89	352	56	10	25	0	56	82	.194	.338	.325	.131	.234	15.9%	23.3%	.308	-2.8	94	1.3
2017	91	365	68	13	35	1	50	83	.221	.343	.388	.166	.261	13.7%	22.7%	.328	+1.1	104	1.9
2016	136	535	105	20	74	2	64	148	.231	.335	.398	.167	.291	12.0%	27.7%	.325	+1.6	98	2.9
2015	127	507	106	23	77	4	53	106	.240	.329	.458	.218	.262	10.5%	20.9%	.345	+11.3	123	3.8

Pitching

Standard and advanced, by season.

																			Trend
2019	4	0	4.0	0	0	0	2	0	2	0	0.00	2.21	0.50	4.5	0.0	0	49	0.1	—

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Season

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2019. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
Split	PA	AB	H	HR	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	K%
vs LHP	66	55	12	3	9	14	.218	.348	.400	.332	21.2%
vs RHP	183	154	34	3	21	46	.221	.333	.305	.286	25.1%

Opponent batting by the side the hitter bats from, 2019. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
Split	PA	AB	H	HR	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	K%
vs LHB	3	3	0	0	0	1	.000	.000	.000	.000	33.3%
vs RHB	10	10	2	0	0	1	.200	.200	.300	.209	10.0%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2019.

Loading 150 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 133 tracked batted balls in 2019. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate: 5.3%
Exit velocity: 88.9
Max exit velo: 107.5
Hard hit: 37.6%
Sweet spot: 29.3%
Launch angle: 10.8°

Barrel rate5.3%

Exit velocity88.9 mph

Hard hit rate37.6%

Contact rate73.0%

A barrel is a batted ball whose exit velocity and launch angle have historically produced at least a .500 average and 1.500 slugging — 98 mph within 26–30°, widening to 8–50° by 116 mph. Reconstructed from Statcast's published anchor points, which reproduces them exactly; the interior is within a degree. Sweet spot (8–32°) is an exact definition.

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2019.

Below averageLeague averageAbove average

Batting average by location of the pitch that ended each plate appearance, catcher's view. The bordered square is the strike zone; the outer band is chase territory. Cells with fewer than 8 at-bats are left grey rather than shown as signal. League average on the same attribution is .252.

Situational hitting

How Russell Martin hits by base state, outs, score and late-game pressure — each read against his own season line.

Split by

By who is on base when he comes up. The season line is repeated as the baseline.
Situation	PA	AB	H	HR	RBI	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA
All situations	249	—	—	—	—	—	—	.220	.337	.330	.298
Bases empty	142	126	29	4	4	11	40	.230	.317	.365	.301
Runner on first	38	29	3	1	2	8	6	.103	.316	.207	.266
Runners on	107	83	17	2	16	19	20	.205	.364	.277	.294
RISP	69	54	14	1	14	11	14	.259	.391	.315	.310

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2019.

Pitch sequencing

What Russell Martin throws in each count, and what he follows each pitch with. Select any cell for the breakdown.

ShowBatter

Four-seamChangeupCurveball

Select a count to see exactly what Russell Martin throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

What he throws, how hard, and how often it misses in 2019.


Four-Seam Fastball	71.1%	32	88.1	2,232	43.8%	26.3%

Russell Martin's arsenal by usage. Velocity is average release speed in mph, spin in rpm, and whiff rate is misses per swing — the cleanest single measure of whether a pitch beats hitters.

Head to head

Put Russell Martin beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players

Russell Martin

Similar players

Nearest 2019 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.

Luis UríasSD

wRC+: 86
HR: 4
AVG: .223
WAR: 0.4

Very close

Tucker BarnhartCIN

wRC+: 86
HR: 11
AVG: .231
WAR: 1.2

Very close

Logan ForsytheTEX

wRC+: 80
HR: 7
AVG: .227
WAR: 0.3

Nick MartiniSD

wRC+: 85
HR: 1
AVG: .226
WAR: -0.0

How these are computed

wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.