GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP)—Rod Barajas(notes) understands his role as the Los Angeles Dodgers’ top catcher is more about what he does behind the plate than with his bat.

Barajas has been in the majors 10 years and it hasn’t been because of bat.

“My number one priority is working with the guys on the mound,” Barajas said Saturday. “Very early in my career, it was pounded in my head that my job was to work with the pitchers. It wasn’t what I did offensively.”

He’s a career .239 hitter, though with some power, but has made only 43 errors in 6,950 innings and has earned a reputation is solid handler of pitchers.

He played 74 games with the New York Mets before being acquired by the Dodgers on Aug. 22, 2010. In his 25 games with the Dodgers late last season, he showed them enough at the plate (hitting .297) and behind it to earn him a 1-year, $3.25 million deal.

The Dodgers decided in the offseason that the veteran Barajas was a better fit for the team than two-time All-Star Russell Martin(notes), who had been the Dodgers’ backstop since his rookie season in 2006. Martin, now with the New York Yankees, played in a career-low 96 games in 2010 after suffering a broken hip.

Aside from signing Barajas, the team also signed Dioner Navarro(notes) to compete with A.J. Ellis(notes) for the two catching spots on the roster.

Navarro, who was with the Dodgers in 2005-06, is a former All-Star with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, but has struggled the last two seasons, playing in just 48 games last year.

“With Rod, I don’t think the position is up for grabs, but we have a plan,” Mattingly said. “My main concern is defense, catching those pitchers. I feel the offense will come.”

The chance in Los Angeles has added meaning for Barajas, who went to high school in the Los Angeles suburb of Santa Fe Springs.

“This is a childhood dream of mine, growing up in L.A.,” said Barajas. “I loved the Dodgers, so to finally get this opportunity to put this uniform on for a full season and to help this club reach its goal of winning a World Series, I’m excited.”

Barajas also is excited about the pitching staff he’s been working with.

The team has five starters who won 10 or more games last season, including a pair of young stars in Chad Billingsley(notes) and Clayton Kershaw(notes). Mix in veterans such as Jon Garland(notes) and Ted Lilly(notes) and Hiroki Kuroda(notes), and Barajas has a lot of talent at his disposal.

“If you are able to stay healthy and pitch, that is the key in this division,” Barajas said. “If you can pitch you can have success and with the guys we have here, we can do something special.”

NOTES: A larger-than-usual group of position players spent part of Saturday’s workout with first base coach Davey Lopes. Matt Kemp(notes), Rafael Furcal(notes), Andre Ethier(notes), Tony Gwynn(notes) Jr. and Dee Gordon(notes) worked with Lopes on base-running. Gordon, one of the Dodgers’ top prospects, stole 53 bases last season in Triple A Chattanooga. High winds and sporadic rain forced the pitchers to throw their bullpen sessions in the covered cages. All of the teams’ projected starters threw 40-pitch sessions. One of those starters, Hiroki Kuroda, is working on adding a curveball and threw a few during his session. “It looked great today and it’s something we’re going to work on quite a bit in spring,” Barajas said of Kuroda’s curveball. “His ability to be able to throw that curveball is only going to make him tougher.”

Russell Martin says he knows why he has skidded from stardom to mediocrity in the prime of his career.

But beyond vague allusions to “frustrations” and “distractions,” he politely declines to explain.

“There’s some things that you keep for yourself,” Martin said. “Those distractions, they’re personal – personal issues in my life that not everybody needs to know about.”

So now Martin is heading for his baptismal season in New York, where a professional athlete’s personal distractions are exactly what the gossip-crazy media want to know about. Especially when that athlete is set to become the everyday catcher for the fabled New York Yankees.

Which means that the first time he slips into a slump, or lets a couple of A.J. Burnett curveballs bounce past him, somebody will dredge up those old web rumours about Russell Martin, L.A. party animal.

Back in his hometown of Toronto for Baseball Canada’s fund-raising banquet Saturday, Martin spoke frankly, if not fully, about his past two down years and the injuries that prompted the only team he had ever known, the Los Angeles Dodgers, to quit on him after five seasons.

After moving from the old Toronto borough of East York and growing up in Chelsea, Que., Martin always trained hard. His preparation became a point of pride when he joined the Dodgers and it helped make him an all-star in 2007 and 2008.

His performance faded during the past two seasons. By his standards, he says, he got lazy.

“I had some distractions that maybe led me not to have that same drive that I’ve had in the past,” he said. “Really, that’s all it is, honestly. I didn’t train quite as – I trained hard, but before, nobody trained as hard as I did.”

In his first three seasons as a Dodger, Martin batted .285, averaging 14 homers, 77 RBIs and an .806 OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage). Over his past two years, he averaged .249 with six homers, 40 RBIs and a .680 OPS.

Increasingly, the Dodgers hinted that he was destined to play third base. Compounding his anxiety, a hip fracture suffered during a freak play at the plate Aug. 2 ended his season – and his Dodgers career.

The hip has healed, although he continues to rehab after a recent (but minor) knee surgery that will force him to ease into his first spring training as a Yankee.

After the Dodgers forced him into free agency, Martin said his choice came down to the Yankees and his hometown Blue Jays. The Jays, he said, were willing to match the Yankees’ one-year, US$4-million offer.

But Martin wanted to remain an everyday catcher. Over an average week, the Jays wanted him to catch four days, play “somewhere else” twice and take a day off, he said.

“The Yankees were just, ‘Hey, we want you to catch as much as possible. We want you to be our guy,’ ” Martin said.

But as he approached a one-year window in the American League East, the biggest attraction to New York was self-evident.

“In my mind, it was, ‘Where do I have a chance to win a World Series the most this next year?’ “

Not that anyone will be sending sympathy cards on this score, but Martin did take a million-dollar pay cut. He could make that back and more because his deal contains US$1.4-million in performance-based incentives.

Martin, who turns 28 next month, knows this is a critical season in a career that began with such promise. He gets one season in a pinstriped pressure-cooker to rebound and set himself up for a multiyear deal next fall.

Whatever those west-coast distractions were, he insists they are behind him. “I feel like I’m back where I need to be. Just mentally, I feel better.”

But he knows that everyone from sportswriters to gossip-mongers to paparazzi will be watching.

“I think I’ve got a lot to prove,” he said, “especially with the last couple years that I’ve had.”

jlott@nationalpost.com

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