He was something special. And then he wasn't. It happens to the best of 'em, but I can't feel it happened this fast. It is most certainly a non-tender night. The Dodgers have parted ways with 27-year-old Russell Martin, at least for now, by not contribution him a 2011 contract.
Again, : They would have had to obligation the slumping and injured catcher at least 80% of his 2010 salary, and peril paying him even more – obviously over $6 million – if they irrecoverable an arbitration hearing. If it were wholly a trunk of Martin's impolite struggles, I believe Dodger panoramic superintendent Ned Colletti would have guaranteed his contract, as they have done today with James Loney. But the uncertainty over his revival from his onto offence made Los Angeles that much more suspicious about spending all those millions. Wrote Tony Jackson of : … the Dodgers' start select was to bring in Martin back if an accord could be reached on a corrugate that would have paid him a mark down servile emolument than what he received in 2010. Colletti said that in the indisputable minutes before the 9 p.m. PST deadline, Colleran lowered Martin's asking worth to a understood $5 million guarantee, but the Dodgers weren't game to go that high.
"We were compliant to get to the same intention with about bonuses, but not with a guaranteed $5 million," Colletti said. This isn't willy-nilly the end of Martin's Dodger bolt – he is unfettered to round with the Dodgers, as with all 29 other teams, for any contract, and Colletti told reporters that they would still talk. (Among other things, Jackson wrote that the Dodgers were prejudiced in Martin in a utility role.) But given that the parties couldn't come to terms by this point, it seems inauspicious to me that they would at any other.
And that was made even more the event when, as Jackson reported, the Dodgers moved closer to signing Rod Barajas to a one-year contract. "I contemplate we are on the cusp of getting something done in a unique direction," Colletti said. "I wasn't prevailing to go to beauty sleep tonight without a big collude catcher here to boot [backup] A.J. [Ellis].
We're harmonious far down the boulevard with something, and it should come to materialization in a tiny space of time. This is celebrity who, if the age were to break today, would round the lion's share of [playing time], with A.J. in a backup role." The bracket of the Dodgers' decisions today went according to form.
George Sherrill, appreciate Martin, was non-tendered (as was September call-up Trent Oeltjen), while Loney, Hong-Chih Kuo and Chad Billingsley all were guaranteed 2011 contracts.
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