The Ramon Martinez Incident

If you play Rotisserie Baseball long enough, eventually you’ll have one of THOSE Drafts. You know the ones … where, despite the months of careful preparation, you can’t do anything right and everything that can go wrong, does.

For Six Packs’ owner Kelly Barone, that Draft was 1992. Unfortunately for Kelly, 1992 was the year we started video taping our Drafts, so his Disaster Draft was preserved for posterity and can now be relived in front of the entire world via the magic of the Internet.

Ok, first I ought to explain what’s up with this whole video taping thing. Long-time owner Bob Monroe (Bald Eagles) had to resign from the league following the 1991 season because he moved out of state. During the off-season he had mentioned a number of times how much he would miss the fun of Draft Day, so as a gag we decided to record the Draft and send it to him. There were so many classic moments in that 1992 Draft, we decided to tape again the following year, and continued doing so for the next 15 or so Drafts.

But back to the matter at hand … Kelly entered the 1992 Draft with .85 to spend on 11 players, but only one other team had less than $1.30 available. After he acquired second baseman Juan Samuel in the first round he was left with just .69 to spend the rest of the day, so Kelly knew he had to be careful with his money.

When Dodger pitcher Ramon Martinez was nominated for bidding, Kelly figured he could safely participate – feigning interest and hoping to drive up the bidding to force someone else to spend their money.

Martinez had turned in some very solid seasons for the Dodgers, winning 20 games in 1990 with a 2.92 ERA and winning 17 with a 3.27 ERA in 1991. However, he also pitched over 450 innings during those two years and there were reports out of a tired arm coming out of Spring Training. Here’s what Bill Mazeroski’s Baseball Magazine had to say in 1992:

Who would have thought the Dodgers’ list of worries would include Dominican right hander Ramon Martinez? … a sore elbow caused Martinez to leave an all start team touring Japan last winter (1990) … As it turned out, Martinez may have paying for the elbow injury all season. His smooth mechanics became disjointed, his arm weakened, and … he wasn’t close to the Ramon Martinez of old.

So the warning signs were there, and apparently they were enough to give most of the CFCL owners second thoughts about bidding too high on Martinez.

Kelly got stuck with Martinez, sucking another .13 out of his available budget, and driving Kelly into a stunned funk that lasted over an hour. As you’ll see in the video, Kelly brooded about The Ramon Martinez Incident for quite a while, feeling “absolutely shattered.” When a pitcher he had hoped to acquire, Martinez’s Dodger teammate Tom Candiotti, was nominated later in the Draft, Kelly wasn’t able to bid high enough to get him.

Eventually Kelly shook it off and acquired another player, but this too turned into a disaster. But the Bret Barberie Incident is a tale for another day. For now, enjoy Kelly’s agony with The Ramon Martinez Incident…