The All-Time Jacksonville Team: Russell Martin is probably better than you thought
When Jacksonville faced off against Akron in the “Legends Begin at Home” virtual MLB The Show simulation featuring each club’s all-time best alumni, all but one player on the Jumbo Shrimp’s roster came from the club’s modern era (1962-present), with Henry Aaron understandably being that exception. But what if we included players dating back to the 1904 Jacksonville Jays, which jumpstarted professional baseball in Northeast Florida? How much, if it all, would the roster change in picking the best possible lineup of players who suited up for Jacksonville on their big league journey?
Legends Begin at Home selections: Russell Martin
Our options: Russell Martin (38.8 bWAR/55.2 fWAR), J.T. Realmuto (18.4 bWAR/17.2 fWAR) and Al López (17.7 bWAR/16.4 fWAR)
Interestingly, Jacksonville can technically boast a Hall of Fame backstop in Al López, a member of the 1927 Jacksonville Tars who spent 19 seasons in the major leagues. López, though, to be fair, was actually inducted as a manager and not a player, and was credited with only 16.4 fWAR and 17.7 bWAR over the length of his entire playing career. Additionally, J.T. Realmuto could have an argument here, depending on how much you believe in his potential and continued production. The pick for me, at least, is Martin. The Canadian catcher’s MLB career has produced both a solid peak and longevity, thus giving him the edge of Realmuto, who is 29 years old and regarded as one of the best catchers in baseball.
Born just outside of Toronto in East York, Canada, Martin spent most of his childhood in Montreal and Chelsea, Quebec. Russell Jr. said one of the best days of his life came when he was 14 or 15 years old and finally beat his father in a game of basketball. His dad, Russell Martin Sr., would play the saxophone in Montreal metro stations, using the money he made to pay for his Russell Jr.’s baseball training. Those training sessions nearly placed Russell Jr. with his hometown Montreal Expos, who picked him out of Polyvalente Edouard Montpetit (high school) in the 35th round of the 2000 draft. Instead, Martin opted to attend Chipola College and signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers after the club picked him in the 17th round of the 2002 draft.
Martin reached Double-A Jacksonville in 2005, his final full season in the minor leagues. The right-hand hitting backstop enjoyed a tremendous season on the First Coast, batting .311/.430/.423 with 17 doubles, nine home runs, 61 RBIs, 83 runs scored and 15 stolen bases to earn both Midseason and Postseason All-Star honors in the Southern League. The .430 on-base percentage still stands as the best single-season mark in Jacksonville history.
It was a sign of things to come; Martin began the 2006 campaign with Triple-A Las Vegas and slashed .297/.389/.419 before earning a call-up to the Dodgers. He made his major league debut on May 5, 2006 against Milwaukee and socked two hits, including a double, and drove in a pair of runs. Martin never returned to the minors.
Is Martin a Hall of Famer? Almost certainly not, but 1,693 games at catcher of 14 seasons with four All-Star honors, a Gold Glove and Silver Slugger is a spectacular career to this point. However, if you go by his FanGraphs WAR (fWAR) instead of his WAR on Baseball-Reference, his Hall of Fame case suddenly is at least worth a second thought.
The 16 catchers currently in Cooperstown average out to 53.6 career WAR/34.8 7yr-peak WAR/44.2 JAWS (Jay Jaffe’s excellent Hall of Fame worthiness tool, which uses bWAR instead of fWAR). Martin, who Baseball-Reference currently lists as the 27th-best catcher of all-time by those three metrics, sees his career WAR catapult to 55.2 with a 34.8 7yr-peak when using FanGraphs’ model (FanGraphs places Martin ninth in career WAR for catchers). Those numbers are right on the average catcher’s marks for the Hall of Fame.
How much weight that argument will have, with a considerable difference in Martin’s bWAR (38.7 career WAR/27.3 7yr-peak WAR/33.0 JAWS), remains to be seen. Martin can boast a Hall of Fame name, however. His full name is Russell Nathan Coltrane Jeanson Martin Jr. He was named Russell for his father, Nathan for a great-grandfather, Jeanson after his mother’s family, and Coltrane after his father’s admiration for musician John Coltrane.
Perhaps Russell Jr.’s best day in baseball actually came in a Spring Training game in 2015, when Martin returned to Montreal with the Toronto Blue Jays for the exhibition contest with the Cincinnati Reds. Coming home, he probably thought about how his dad made this possible. It was Russell Sr.’s saxophone, the smooth tones filling Montreal metro stations, that had paid for the youth training sessions that led to Russell Jr.’s big league successes, the All-Star Games, awards and everything else.
On that 2015 night back in Montreal, Russell Sr. stood a few feet behind home plate, not far from where his son, would squat to receive pitches a few minutes later. Russell Sr. took out his saxophone and unveiled a rousing rendition of “O Canada” to the sold-out crowd. Later on, just before the eighth inning and after several standing ovations from the hometown fans, Russell Jr. looked out towards the dugout. Instead of Blue Jays manager John Gibbons heading out to the field, it was Russell Sr., coming to take his son out of the game. “It was one of those moments,” Russell Jr. would later say. It certainly was, in an excellent career made possible by his dad.
