via www.survivinggrady.com

Sup other bored Pirates fans? So last year I did a little digging on AJ Burnett's splits which made it look like a trip to Pittsburgh would lead to him doing extremely well. So after reading fun jokes in articles like WHYGAVS' Pirates interested in Russell Martin and burning money, I figured I'd take a look to see if there was any good news. Here's what I found. Like Burnett, Martin has had great success in his craft over his career playing in the NL central stadiums that he will play the majority of his season in. Don't believe me? Fine jerk, here are some statistics via Yahoo's split stats site:

Park ABs AVG OBP Slugging OPS

Busch 50 .200 .216 .220 .436

Great American 80 .338 .411 .413 .824

Miller 44 .364 .391 .545 .937

PNC 40 .350 .469 .650 1.119

Wrigley 66 .318 .430 .348 .779

Totals 280 .314 .390 .418 .808

So it looks like when Russell Martin is in an NL Central Stadium, he turns into Johnny Bench. Granted this is a Tike Redman or Adrian Brown sized AB sample, and I recognize that a majority of the damage was done while he was a Dodger, but it's nice to see that Martin's had success. For whatever reason, he didn't hit all that well at New Yankee Stadium but he put up a solid .762 OPS at Dodger Stadium, which doesn't make any sense. Either way, I feel better about the acquisition. Perhaps Martin's struggles are more related to facing tougher pitching competition in the AL East. I feel a renaissance year coming on as he bridges the gap to Sanchez or Mathieson.