Pittsburgh Pirates: Signing Russell Martin is Still Impacting the Franchise

In the 2012-2013 offseason, the Pittsburgh Pirates made one of their best signings of the decade by inking Russell Martin to a two-year contract and the signing is still making an impact today.

On November 30, 2012, the Pittsburgh Pirates signed catcher Russell Martin to a two-year, $17 million contract. This signing turned out to be one of, if not the best Pirates signing in the 2010 decade. Martin was signed for his defense, but he provided more offense than you could have hoped for.

In 2013, Martin hit .226/.327/.377 with a 100 OPS+ and 102 wRC+ in 506 plate appearances. He also crushed 15 home runs, and walked 11.5% of the time. Martin came through in the clutch multiple times through the season, indicated by his .282/.392/.409 line in high leverage situations. But it was defense that Martin excelled in.

Behind the plate, the former Gold Glove Award winner caught 41% of runners trying to steal on him, and had +21 defensive runs saved. Martin saved a lot of his runs through framing with +17 framing runs above average, the 7th highest in the MLB. Overall, he had a 5.4 fWAR, which was the 16th highest in all of baseball. Then during the 2013 National League Wild Card Game, Martin crushed a pair solo home runs. This included one of the most memorable home runs in MLB postseason history.

The following season, Martin really hit. In 460 plate appearances, Russ put up a slash line of .290/.402/.430 with 11 home runs, a 135 OPS+ and 140 wRC+. Among players in the MLB with at least 450 plate appearances, Martin was one of the best offensive players in baseball ranking at 18th. Martin continued to flash the leather behind the plate having +21 DRS, catching 39% of runners trying to take an extra base on him, and being worth 19.2 framing runs.

But after the 2014 season, Martin hit free agency. He eventually signed a five-year, $82 million deal with the Toronto Blue Jays. The Pittsburgh Pirates replaced Martin with Francisco Cervelli, but the Pirates are still feeling the affects of the signing to this day, and probably will for years to come.

You see, the Pirates issued Russell Martin a qualifying offer before he went into free agency. They offered him a one-year, $15.3 million deal, which he rejected. That meant whatever team that signed him gave the Pirates another first round pick. When the Blue Jays signed Martin, they gave the Pirates the 32nd overall pick in the draft.

In the 2015 draft, the Pirates used their original pick, the 19th overall selection, by drafting Kevin Newman. But with that 32nd overall pick, the Pirates were able to draft third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes.

As we all know, Ke’Bryan Hayes isn’t just one of the Pittsburgh Pirates best prospects, but one of the best prospects in all of baseball. FanGraphs places him as the 30th best prospect in all of baseball. Hayes is an extremely athletic third baseman. FanGraphs gives him a future 70 fielding grade on the 20-80 scale, and has an arm grade of 60. He also could be a speed threat in the majors. Hayes has stole 27, 12, and 13 bags in each of the last three seasons. FanGraphs gives his speed a 60 current grade, but a future of 55. Regardless, both of those are above average.

Although Hayes struggled out of the gate in 2019, he still is seen as the Pirates best hitting prospect. His 55 graded hit tool is the best in the Pirates minor league system. MLB Pipeline grades it out at 60. It’s understandable seeing as he has an average exit velocity of 92 MPH, which would be somewhere in the top 90th-95th percentile of all MLB batters. Plus with the Pirates looking to possibly extend some of their young players, including Hayes, the Pirates might be seeing the Martin signing still positively affecting the Pirates upwards of a decade and a half or more later.