Russell Martin is an imperfect, sensible move for the Blue Jays

The Blue Jays needed a catcher. Russell Martin is an excellent catcher. The Blue Jays were a better team on November 17 than they were on November 16. If you’re short on time, that’s the bulk of what there is to know. Worry about the fifth year of the contract during the fourth year.

As if there were any question as to which side of the win-now spectrum the Blue Jays should be on, this answers how they see things. More importantly, the Blue Jays should actively improve their team in the hopes of contending in 2015. The Orioles had a stellar season, but they don’t walk, talk, or quack like a juggernaut. The Red Sox are loaded with young talent, but they did just come off a 90-loss season. The Yankees are a pile of bones that even an active offseason might not save, and the Rays will be without David Price for the entire season. This, more than any other time over the last two decades, is the time to pounce in the AL East. Pounce, dang it, pounce!

Here’s where the pairing is a bit of a weird fit, though. Russell Martin is an aging player at a position that’s extraordinarily harsh on the human body. He’s unlikely to make it out the other side of this contract whole. That means his new team is expecting immediate dividends in the short term. Martin probably isn’t going to be the kerosene in the heater of the 2019 Blue Jays. He’ll be expected to push a win-now team over the top. Consider the history of aging catchers. Here are all the catchers in baseball history who had more than a single three-win season after turning 32.

That’s it. And a few of those catchers were sluggers who had a lot of offense to give back before they started hitting like the typical catcher. Martin isn’t quite that consistent or overpowering.

That written, it would have made more sense for a current contender to make a bigger push for Martin’s services. The Blue Jays pair up with Martin well, and you have to figure he’s giddy to be back in his hometown playing for the team he grew up rooting for. But there had to have been a win-now team who needed to spend more on a win-now player like Martin. Take the case of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Dodgers once decided they would be better off without Martin and his $5 million salary, so it would be mildly amusing to see them pay $82 million to get him back. They had a need, though. A.J. Ellis hit below the Mendoza Line last season, and he was one of the worst catchers in baseball when it came to pitch framing. That combination is like finding a hair in a fingernail pie, and the Dodgers had an easy alternative to him on the open market. All they needed to do was spend money. Which they’re excellent at.

You can do this kind of matchmaking for a few teams, but other than the Dodgers, no one made more sense than the Pirates. They’re a win-now team who became win-now in large part because of Martin. They’re also delightfully unburdened with regrettable contracts, so it made sense for them to write off a little of the 2019 budget to cash in on 2015, when they know they should contend.

Instead, the Blue Jays were the most aggressive team. If last year’s roster featured Russell Martin as the starting catcher, they still might not have made the playoffs, but they would have been a heckuva lot closer. That’s the good news. The bad news is that they’re not getting last year’s Russell Martin; they’re getting next year’s. That version might be the same guy or better, but he’s much more likely to be worse, if only a little bit.

Still, this makes sense for the Blue Jays if they’re planning to have a win-now offseason, acting more like Mike Ilitch than Rogers Communications, or if their internal metrics and evaluations have Martin as being much, much more valuable than WAR is giving him credit for. It’s a tricky thing to whittle any player’s contributions down to a single number that combines hitting and fielding. It’s impossibly tricky for catchers, and it’s possible we’re all selling a veteran catcher with soft hands and a strong clubhouse reputation short.

Martin makes sense for the Blue Jays, but he made a lot more sense for a couple other teams. The Blue Jays are hoping that those teams are kicking themselves in a couple years because of the opportunity they missed. When it comes to over-30 catchers on long-term deals, though, the odds are against the Jays, so they’ll need to improve more to build around their aging talent. Martin is a good start to the offseason, but a poor finish. The next five months will have a lot to do with how this contract looks, even before Martin starts a game for the Blue Jays.