Washington Nationals Dave Martinez Is A Good Manager

The Platoons

The closest Martinez comes to roster creativity is in a couple of regular platoons. Yan Gomes and Kurt Suzuki split duties behind the plate 55% to 45%. Gomes catches Strasburg and Corbin, Suzuki catches Scherzer and Sanchez, and they mostly divvy up whoever slots in as the fifth starter.

Gomes fell onto an all-time skid at the plate this year, just recently showing signs of coming back to life. Nobody told Martinez, who runs him out there with regularity regardless. To his credit, Gomes has outperformed Suzuki by just enough to justify his usage: 0.6 bWAR/0.3 fWAR to 0.4 bWAR/0.2 fWAR.

At first base, Martinez utilizes more standard splits. Before plantar fasciitis ruined Ryan Zimmerman, he was the unequivocal starting first baseman, with Matt Adams taking tough righties and a couple of times a week. Since Zimmerman is no longer ambulatory, Martinez starts Adams religiously against righties, and Howie Kendrick gets the charge against left-handers.

If Adams can’t go – ticky-tack injuries have taken their toll on Big City this year – Gerardo Parra has stepped in ably with13 starts at the position while looking the part defensively (1 DRS in 96 innings, 9.8 UZR/150).

Kendrick spells Dozier at second about once every two weeks. Again, consistency has been key here for Martinez, who stuck with Dozier when the rest of the DMV insisted he was washed.

On June 1, Dozier showed up slashing .209/.299/.362 with 7 home runs and 16 RBIs. Maybe because Dozier is making $9 MM, maybe Martinez is a true believer – either way, he kept trotting him out to the keystone almost like he didn’t know there was another option. Dozier’s numbers now look about what you’d expect from him after 2+ months of .278/.391/.525, 9 home runs, 24 RBIs.

Rightly or wrongly, Martinez doesn’t let a measly thing like performance get in the way of his platoons.

In the outfield, however, there are no platoons.