On May 5, 2006, after a wrist injury to starting catcher Dioner Navarro, East York Ontario native Russell Martin was promoted to the Los Angeles Dodgers. In his first game, the 23-year-old Canadian had two hits, including a double in a game the Dodgers would win 5-4 against the Milwaukee Brewers. Martin would play out the rest of the season and became a fixture behind the plate for years.
Fast forward to August 3, 2020. San Diego Padre phenom Fernando Tatis Jr. was barreling toward home plate where 25-year-old Will Smith was waiting for him with the ball. Tatis tried to avoid the tag but instead awkwardly ran over Smith. The Dodgers would lose that game 5-4, but in Smith, the Dodgers have found something very similar to Martin.
According to JackpotCity Casino, the Dodgers odds were +450 to win the World Series back on August 3rd. They were 7-4, and while they did not look too bad, they also did not look too good. More to the point, no one was overthinking the incident after the game. Smith admitted he put himself in the wrong position but seemed no worse for the wear. Yet twelve days later, Smith was batting just .188 on the season and struggling behind the plate. It was then that the Dodgers placed Smith on the 10-day injured list with a sore neck.
In Smith’s absence, the Dodgers went on a tear. His replacement, veteran catcher Austin Barnes was a big part of it. Barnes’s performance was so significant that it had many questioning Smith’s roles this season. Suddenly, the fixture that the Dodgers were counting on did not seem like a fixture at all. At least not in this year’s shortened season.
Smith on the other hand remained patient and confident. In his first game back on August 23, Smith hit a home run and scored two runs to help the Dodgers defeat the Colorado Rockies 11-3. From that point on, he’d go on to become one of the most productive hitters in a lineup that featured two recent MVPs in Mookie Betts and Cody Bellinger, sluggers Max Muncy and Justin Turner at the corners, and soon to be World Series MVP Corey Seager.
Playing on 37-games of a shortened 60-game season skews numbers, but when Smith did play, he was terrific. Smith slashed .289/.401/.579 with eight home runs in just 137 plate appearances. His 163 wRC+ led the team and ranked 11th among all major league batters with at least 100 plate appearances. Those numbers were also first among catchers.
The power came as no surprise. Smith’s home run numbers project out to over 30 in a full season, and last year he hit 15 homers in 54 games as a rookie. What did turn heads was Smith’s improved plate discipline. This season his strikeout rate plummeted (26.5 to 14.6 percent), his walk rate increased (9.2 to 17.5 percent), and his chase rate (13.2 percent) was the fourth-best in baseball. He had nearly as many walks (20) as he did strikeouts (22).
Russell Martin would go on to play five seasons for the Dodgers. When Los Angeles did not tender him a contract at the end of the 2010 season, he would leave the team as a free agent, signing a one-year deal with the New York Yankees in front of the 2011 season. According to Sportac, Will Smith will not be a free agent until the 2026 season, but unlike Russell, expect a long-term deal to keep him a Dodger well into his 30’s.
