Leonys Martin plays for the Rangers, and yes, that's how you spell his first name. He's also stolen 30 bases with 65 runs scored in each of the past two seasons. How many guys have done that? It's a small cohort of four men: Jacoby Ellsbury, Carlos Gomez, Starling Marte and Martin. Perhaps you should take a second look at an outfielder that you may have overlooked heading into the 2015 campaign. 

THE MINORS

2011: Signed as an amateur free agent out of Cuba. As a 23 year old he appeared in 73 games across three leagues (rookie, Double-A, Triple-A). He hit .295 with a .362 OBP as he stole 19 bases and scored 53 runs.

2012: Baseball America had him ranked as the 79th best prospect in baseball. MLB.com had him 89th. Appeared in 55 games at Triple-A hitting a robust .359 with a sick 1.033 OPS. His OBP was .422 with a .610 SLG. He hit 12 homers and stole 10 bags while scoring 48 times with 42 RBIs. 

2013: Baseball America had him ranked as the 97th best prospect in baseball. 

TOTALS: .323/.388/.503 with 16 homers, 84 RBIs, 101 runs and 29 steals in just 128 games. He was also caught 20 times on the base paths. 

THE MAJORS

2011: Appeared in eight games picking up three hits in eight at-bats.

2012: Saw action in 24 Rangers' games. He hit an anemic .174 with a .235 OBP. Stole three bases and scored six times while driving in six runners.

2013: Appeared in 147 games batting .260 with eight homers, 49 RBIs and 66 runs scored. Had a mere .313 OBP but still managed to steal 36 bases. 

2014: Appeared in 155 games batting .274 with seven homers, 40 RBIs and 68 runs scored. He had a .325 OBP but still stole 31 bases (he was caught 12 times).



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THE SKILLS

Martin will be 27 on Opening Day even though he's got just two years of full season work under his belt. How much growth can be expected at this point? That's a fair question to ask is that.

Martin has speed to burn. Lot's of it, and that's his main claim to fan in fantasy baseball. As I noted above he's swiped 30 bags in back-to-back seasons. However, he's also been caught a lot. He seems to always be caught actually (he was only 29 for 49 on steal attempts in the minors). The last two seasons he's been successful of 67 of 88 attempts. That's a solid 76 percent success rate, but unless he ramps up the attempt total, it's not a high enough success rate to think him a legitimate threat to swipe 40 bags. Set your sites in this column at repeating the last couple of seasons, not anything more.

I'll say this about Martin. He's shown little to no growth in his two full big league seasons, but consistency he's got in spades. Let's go through it.

2013: .260/.313/.385 leading to a .698 OPS
2014:  .274/.325.364 leading to a .689 OPS

Hard to get more consistent than that.

2013: 8 HRs, 49 RBIs, 66 runs, 36 steals
2014: 7 HRs, 40 RBIs, 68 runs, 31 steals

Remarkable consistency.

2013: 1.81 GB/FB, 21.0 line drive rate
2014:  1.81 GB/FB, 21.9 line drive rate

Crazy close.

In fact, all of that repetition is rather amazing in the real world. It's nearly impossible to be that consistent from seasons to season. Credit for that Mr. Martin.

But what does he bring to the field beyond consistency?

The last two seasons Martin has had a .014 point batting average spread. Pretty small. He's also had a less than one percent spread with his line drive rate and just a .017 point spread in BABIP (.319 and .336). Not much reason to expect him to be anything other than a .260-.270 hitter given all of that.

He doesn't get on base with an OBP the last two seasons of .315, which is below the league average. He did walk 11 more times last season but even so his total of 39 walks is still pretty miserable for someone with more than 580 plate appearances. He also spent just 40 games hitting leadoff last season with 78 appearances out of the 7th and 8th holes. If Shin-Soo Choo is healthy one would think he would hit leadoff for the Rangers dropping Martin to lower in the order. That not only would cost him a ton of plate appearances (roughly 15-20 PAs are lost of the course of the season per spot in the batting order one is dropped), it would limit Martin's ability to contribute in the counting categories. Given his lack of elite skills, losing 100 plate appearances dropping from leadoff to the bottom third of the Rangers attack will do a good job of limiting the potential upside of Martin, especially in the RBI and runs scored column. Expecting much growth there seems unlikely.

Fifteen homers in two seasons mark him as someone who has an upside of like 10 homers. The last two seasons his ground ball rate has been over 50 percent each time. When you look over to the HR/F column you also see back-to-back seasons with a mark under 8.5. There's no reason to expect any appreciable power growth from Martin.

PLAYING TIME CONSIDERATIONS
 

Martin is slated to start in center field for the Rangers, and there's really no reason to think that he won't play 140+ games if healthy. However, it should be noted that he has some pretty vicious splits. The lefty really can't hit lefties. Through 277 at-bats against portsiders he's hit .235 with a .279 OBP and .296 SLG. Will the Rangers sit him against lefties and turn to another option? It's possible. Best case scenario for you would be to bench Martin when a lefty was on the mound and go with another guy that day anyway. He's shown no ability to do anything against port siders to this point of his career, and don't forget he will be 27 years old in March. He's no green youngster. 

CONCLUSION

According to the most recent ADP numbers from the NFBC, Martin is on the outside looking in when it comes to the top-40 at the outfield position. Given his lack of "upside" I'm not surprised. Alas, he's still a solid option to target in the middle rounds because of three main factors. (1) He's consistent. (2) He's got an every day job. (3) He's a stolen base threat. Elite he will never be, but if others are sleeping on him you could end up finding yourself a solid OF3 in your mixed league at a cost that is less than that. 

10 team lg: Given that only his steals total really stands out, it's hard to get behind Martin as anything other than a 5th outfielder type here. It's hard to make up for a guy hitting eight homers with 45 RBIs in your outfield, especially when that guy hasn't hit .275 in a big league season. Too many others on the other clubs in a league this shallow will be producing more impressive numbers in the counting categories. 

12 team lg: A solid depth play is Martin. Could have pretty much repeated the 10 team comment with the following addendum: the deeper the league the less harmful his lack of power and run production becomes.

15 team lg: A nice target in this format. Cheap speed, that's consistent, is a good thing. While others are spending big and early on a guy like Mookie Betts or Danny Santana, you can wait and reap the rewards with Martin, a cheaper option who could be as good, if not better, than the duo just mentioned. 

AL-only: Remember the big three above? Each of those three categories on their own make a guy worthy of paying attention to in a league specific setup. When a guy has all three - sign me up in a league specific format.