마틴을 어떻게 해야할까?

So What Are We Going To Do About Russell Martin?

I realize that, with the Dodgers flying along with the best record in baseball, this is just going to sound like I'm looking for something to complain about. But it's not that at all; this is a serious problem facing the team that's not really getting a lot of play because of how well the team is doing. Because believe me, if Russell Martin was hitting .236 and the team was below .500, he'd be getting a lot more heat. While Martin being productive might not be a requirement to win the division, you can't have him being a black hole in the playoffs - and worse, this is hardly something that just started on Opening Day this year. Though he had a quietly effective May, he was bad in April - and has been hideous in June (just 4 hits this month), after yet another 0-fer last night.
메이저리그 전체 승률 1위를 달리고 있는 다저스에게 분명 마틴의 비생산적인 모습은 디비전 타이틀을 획득하는데 걸림돌로 작용하지는 않겠지만, 정작 중요한 플옵에서는 엄청난 구멍으로 전락될 것입니다.
4월에 삽질하고, 5월에 조금 살아나는 기미가 있었지만, 그는 이달에 48타석동안 단 6개의 안타만을 생산해냈고 전부 단타였으며 올시즌 단지 9개의 장타만을 뽑아내는 허접한 공격력을 보여주고 있습니다.

You don't need me to specify that Martin's been lousy this year; you watch the games, and you know. But you might be surprised - I know I was - to see just how bad he's been. You might want to take small children out of the room for this, because this is going to be Juan Pierre 2007-level bad.
굳이 구체적인 스텟을 언급하지 않더라도 다저게임을 조금이라도 보셨다면 한숨이 태평양을 건너 한국의 다저스팬들에게까지 들릴 겁니다.
하지만 일단 조금은 집고 넘어가보죠!

OPS!
Martin is at: .625
Which puts him: 160th in MLB (of 172 qualifiers)
Behind the likes of: Howie Kendrick (just demoted to AAA), Jhonny Peralta (just benched), and magical pixie elf David Eckstein (is David Eckstein).
And that means... what's worse, that he's hitting worse than guys who are losing their jobs, or that he's less potent than David Eckstein? The truly scary part here is that his .347 OBP is still pretty respectable thanks to the walks he draws, which means that when you look at just his slugging percentage...
마틴의 OPS는 .625로 동등한 입장에 있는 하위 켄들릭(Howie Kendrick)과 좌니 페랄타(Jhonny Peralta)가 있는데 이들 모두는 포지션경쟁에서 졌거나, 데이빗 엑스타인(David Eckstein)과 동등한 레벨이 되었습니다. 이상한점은 마틴의 출루율은 여전히 .347로 좋은편인데도 이들과 동등한 입장으로 취급받는다는것 장타력이 형편없다는 증거죠.

SLG!
Martin is at: .278
Which puts him: 169th in MLB (of 172 qualifiers)
Behind the likes of: Just about everyone who's not the 38-year-old corpse of Brian Giles or just-demoted Giant Emmanuel Burriss.
And that means... it means he's the least dangerous hitter in baseball, basically. Let me put it this way; it's about 35 points lower than the worst season Juan Pierre ever had, ever. Think about that for a second. Russell Martin looks at Juan Pierre and says to himself, "man, I wish I had his power."
장타율에서 찾아보면 노쉬한 브라이언 자일스(Brian Giles)나 강등된 엠마뉴엘 뷰리스(Emmanuel Burriss)가 있으며 이 셋 모두 싸그리 야구에서 가장 비(非)위협적인 존재라는 겁니다. 피에르의 커리어에서 최악의 장타력이 있던해가 루키시즌인 2000년인데 이보다 35포인트나 못한 성적을 찍어내고 있습니다.

VORP!
Martin is at: -2.6
Which puts him: 47th among MLB catchers (min. 50 PA)
Behind the likes of: Nick Hundley, Koyie Hill, Chad Moeller, Wil Nieves
And that means... 47th among MLB catchers? 26th for NL only? Remember, there's only 30 MLB teams, 16 in the NL. Right now, Russell Martin isn't worthy of a starting gig.
VORP(Value Over Replacemnet Player)는 최악인데, 백업포수보다 더 못한 활약을 펼치고 있습니다. 이러면서도 그를 계속 쓰는 이유는 아무래도 여태까지의 염가봉사? 혹은 올시즌 불어난 그의 연봉?

And as I said, this is hardly a 2009 thing. Over the last calendar year, here's his line - in 145 games, he's got a .250/.359/.334, with 7 homers for a .639 OPS. By comparison, Juan Pierre's career OPS is .721 - nearly a full 100 points better.
피에르의 커리어 OPS가 .721인데 올시즌 마틴과 비교했을때 거의 1할이나 차이나고 있습니다.

I don't know if I can possibly repeat that enough for emphasis: Russell Martin has been worse than Juan Pierre over the last year.
일단 마틴의 현재 성적을 보고있자면 작년의 피에르보다 더 못한 성적을 찍어내고 있다는 점입니다.

It's not just us stat dorks, either, judging by what an anonymous scout told Baseball Prospectus:

Dodgers catcher Russell Martin: "You talk about a young player growing old before our very eyes. His bat is slowing down, and he's not moving very well behind the plate. I don't know what's wrong with him."

Ugh; is there anything more depressing than hearing the phrase "getting old before our very eyes" about a guy who's just 26?

So, what exactly is his problem?
무엇이 문제인지 좀 볼까요?

Is he making less contact?

Yeah, that's part of it. His 19.8 K% is higher than it's ever been, but it's also not an astronomical jump from his usual range of 13-16% - and it's still below the league average of 20%. It's not a good sign, to be sure, but it's also hardly enough to be causing what we're seeing.
컨택이 많이 떨어졌나요? 올해 삼진율은 19.8%까지 육박했으며, 그의 커리어를 보면 13~16%사이를 오갔습니다. 물론 리그평균이 20%이지만 마틴의 기준으로 볼때 이건 결코 좋은 징조가 아닙니다.

Is he hitting fewer line drives?

Surprisingly, no. His line drive percentage is eerily consistent - at 19.4%, it's no different than his career average of 18.9%. Other than a slight dip in 2007, he's been within the 19% range his entire career.
라인드라이브성 타구가 줄었을까? 커리어 18.9%의 라인드라이브타구를 생산해내는 마틴을 봤을때 올시즌 19.4%의 수치는 큰 차이가 없어보입니다. 물론 07년도에 조금 하락된 수치가 있었지만 거의 19%대를 유지하고 있습니다.

Is he hitting more ground balls?

A few, but not a whole lot more. 52.4% of the time in 2009, not too much different than his career average of 50.1%. When he came up in 2006, it was 50.4%, so it's more, but not hugely more.
땅볼을 많이 쳐내나? 커리어(50.1%)를 생각해볼때 올시즌의 수치(52.4%)는 조금 올랐지만 큰 차이가 있는 건 아닙니다.

Is he just unlucky?

Partially. His batting average on balls in play is .294, which is the lowest of his career. However, the league average is .300, so that's hardly a disaster.
운이 없었을까? 올시즌 BABIP는 .294를 찍고 있는데 커리어 로우입니다. 하지만 리그 평균인 3할을 생각해볼때 그렇게 실망적인 수치는 아닙니다.

Is he swinging at bad pitches?

We saw earlier that Pierre's resurgence was caused in large part by his becoming more choosy in his at-bats, swinging at fewer balls out of the zone that he couldn't get solid contact on. But none of this applies to Martin; his ratios of swings at balls out of the zone (19.4%), in the zone (60.6%), and overall swings (39.3%) fall right into his career averages.
배드볼 히터로 전락한걸까? 최근 피에르의 성공에서는 선구안이 크게 작용하지만, 이는 마틴에게 적용되는 범위라고는 생각지 않는다. 마틴은 여전히 스트라익 존 외의 공에 적은 스윙과 스트라익 존안에 형성된 공에 대해 많은 스윙을 하면서 좋은 선구안을 유지하고 있습니다만 커리어 평균과 비교했을때 많이 떨어졌다는 겁니다.

Okay, you've told us everything it's not. When are you going to tell us what it is?

Well, the fact that he's striking out more and hitting more groundballs certainly contributes, but, there's no one stat that has popped out that really goes to explain what Martin's issue is. Let's go back to what the scout said earlier:
마틴이 이렇게 삽질하고 있는 이유를 스카우터들 조차 모르겠다고 표현하는데, 조바심이 원인이 아닐까...하는 개인적인 추측입니다.

Dodgers catcher Russell Martin: "You talk about a young player growing old before our very eyes. His bat is slowing down, and he's not moving very well behind the plate. I don't know what's wrong with him."

Focus on the part about his bat slowing down, and you're on to a big part of the problem... Martin is getting blown away by fastballs.

Over at FanGraphs, they've been able to assign a run value to the production on each type of pitch a batter sees, and then converted it to a rate. For example, if you look at Albert Pujols against fastballs, he's been pretty consistently at 2-4 runs per 100 fastballs above average over his career, though he's beating even that this year. In 2007, Martin's first full (and best) season, he produced 1.69 runs above average every 100 fastballs. Last year, in which he was still decent but nowhere near as good as in 2007, that fell to 0.59. This year? Down to just 0.14.
100 fastballs이라는게 무슨뜻인지는 모르겠지만, 마틴이 최고의 성적을 올린 07시즌에 그의 수치는 1.69에 다달았지만, 작년 0.59로 추락했으며 올시즌에는 단지 0.14까지 추락했습니다.

It's hardly a foolproof method - he's also down on sliders, as well - but it certainly makes sense, doesn't it? You've got a heavily used catcher who's striking out more, grounding out more, is having a hard time catching up to fastballs, has had his "Speed" score drop four years in a row (it's a 1-10 ranking scale that uses several speed-based stats, and Martin's gone from 5.3 to 5.2 to 4.0 to 3.3), and has a scout saying he looks old.
빌 제임스(Bill James)씨가 만든 '스피드 스코어'라는 수치에서도 마틴은 4년 연속 하락하는 수치를 보여주고 있는데, 이는 아무래도 포수라는 포지션이 지닌 어쩔수없는 흐름이 아닐까 싶습니다.
We’ve added Bill James’ Speed Score to the player pages, leaderboards, and team pages. We’re using the 4 component version, which is an average of Stolen Base Percentage, Frequency of Stolen Base Attempts, Percentage of Triples, and Runs Scored Percentage.

Is it possible that all the vitriol we directed at Grady Little in 2006 and '07, and Joe Torre in 2008 (especially with the ridiculous "third base days off"), for overworking him is coming home to roost much much quicker than we thought it would? To his credit, Torre's been better about resting him this season (though when Brad Ausmus is outproducing him it's probably not a hard decision to make any more) but is that simply too little too late? Did all of the extra work he received the last few seasons sap the energy out of him? You hate to say that at 26, but the evidence is pretty glaring.
이글의 최종 변론이 아닐까 싶은데, 결국 지난 3년동안 무리한 포수출전이 원인으로 작용되었고 특히 작년에는 '쉬는 날엔 3루로~~'라는 어이없는 룰이 적용된게 크다고 보네요. 일단 마틴의 경우는 토레가 휴식일을 철저히(?) 지키고 있다고 하지만 올시즌 여전히 포수중에서 가장 많은 이닝을 소화하고 있으며 전체 2위인 카즈의 몰리나보다 7이닝을 더 소화했습니다.
물론 위에 나열된 이야기는 모두 마틴의 공격적인 측면이며 여전히 수비와 포수포지션에서의 마틴의 성적은 우수한 편입니다.

The real question is, what to do? I'm not ready to give up on him just yet; he's been too important to this team over the last few years, but also because A) there's no one really worth replacing him with and B) the large division lead allows you some leeway in letting him work things out.
이런 최악의 스텟을 찍고있으면서도 그를 계속 내보낼수 밖에 없는 이유는 대체자원이 없다는 것과 다저스가 최고의 승률을 달리고 있어 덜 까이는 측면이 크겠죠.
요즘 우리 블로거들이 우스게소리로 하는 말이 중간에 "J"를 빼는게 어떻겠냐고 하는데, 굿이라도 해야하나?-.-;;