LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Dodgers and former Detroit Tigers outfielder Marcus Thames have agreed to a $1-million, one-year contract.

Thames had a .288 batting average and a .350 on-base percentage in 82 games, both career highs, with the New York Yankees last season.

The deal calls for Thames to receive $325,000 in bonuses based on plate appearances, including $25,000 for 200 appearances, and $50,000 each for 250, 300, 350, 400, 450 and 500 appearances.

Thames would receive $475,000 in bonuses based on innings in the field, including $25,000 each for 275 and 325 innings, $50,000 for 375 innings, and $75,000 apiece for 425, 475, 525, 575 and 625 innings.

Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti says Thames brings a power bat to the outfield, especially against left-handed pitching.

Thames has a .248 career batting average with 82 doubles, 113 home runs and 294 RBIs in 604 games over his nine major league seasons with the Yankees (2002, 2010), Texas Rangers (2003) and Tigers (2004-09).

He was on the 2006 AL champion Tigers and played in the World Series that season. Thames also appeared in eight postseason games last season with the Yankees.

Cody Ross sticks with Giants

Postseason star Cody Ross, another former Tiger, has avoided salary arbitration with the World Series champion San Francisco Giants, agreeing to terms on a $6.3-million, one-year contract.

The deal marks a nice raise for the former kid rodeo clown. Ross earned $4.45 million last season, when he joined the Giants on a waiver claim from Florida on Aug. 22.

Ross became one of the Giants’ most reliable players down the stretch and during an improbable title run. The 30-year-old quickly became a fan favorite in the Bay Area. He hit three of his five postseason home runs during the NL championship series against Philadelphia. He drove in 10 runs during the playoffs, two in San Francisco’s five-game World Series win over the Texas Rangers.

Son of a team roper and steer wrestler, Ross as a boy would dress up as a clown for weekend rodeo events with hopes of one day getting in the ring. But he discovered baseball first.

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Dodgers and outfielder Marcus Thames have agreed to a US$1-million, one-year contract.

Thames had a .288 batting average and a .350 on-base percentage in 82 games, both career highs, last season with the New York Yankees.

The deal calls for Thames to receive $325,000 in bonuses based on plate appearances, including $25,000 for 200 appearances, and $50,000 each for 250, 300, 350, 400, 450 and 500 appearances.

Thames would receive $475,000 in bonuses based on innings in the field, including $25,000 each for 275 and 325 innings, $50,000 for 375 innings, and $75,000 apiece for 425, 475, 525, 575 and 625 innings.

Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti says Thames brings a power bat to the outfield, especially against left-handed pitching.

Thames has a .248 career batting average with 82 doubles, 113 home runs and 294 RBI in 604 games over his nine major league seasons with the Yankees (2002, 2010), Texas Rangers (2003) and Detroit Tigers (2004-09).

He was on the 2006 AL champion Tigers and played in the World Series that season. Thames also appeared in eight post-season games last season with the Yankees.

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Dodgers and outfielder Marcus Thames have agreed to a $1 million, one-year contract.

Thames had a .288 batting average and a .350 on-base percentage in 82 games, both career highs, last season with the New York Yankees.

The deal calls for Thames to receive $325,000 in bonuses based on plate appearances, including $25,000 for 200 appearances, and $50,000 each for 250, 300, 350, 400, 450 and 500 appearances.

Thames would receive $475,000 in bonuses based on innings in the field, including $25,000 each for 275 and 325 innings, $50,000 for 375 innings, and $75,000 apiece for 425, 475, 525, 575 and 625 innings.

Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti says Thames brings a power bat to the outfield, especially against left-handed pitching.

Thames has a .248 career batting average with 82 doubles, 113 home runs and 294 RBI in 604 games over his nine major-league seasons with the Yankees (2002, 2010), Texas Rangers (2003) and Detroit Tigers (2004-09).

He was on the 2006 AL champion Tigers and played in the World Series that season. Thames also appeared in eight postseason games last season with the Yankees.

Former New York Yankee outfielder Marcus Thames signed a one-year contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Thames, selected by the Yankees in the 1996 draft, posted career highs with a .288 batting average and a .350 on-base percentage in 82 Major League Baseball games last season with New York.

“Marcus brings a power bat to our outfield options, particularly against left-handed pitching,” Dodgers General Manager Ned Colletti said in a statement. “His positive presence in the clubhouse is an added benefit and he also knows what it takes to play in the postseason.”

The 33-year-old right-hander hit home runs in five consecutive starts from Aug. 24-30 to become the first Yankee to accomplish the feat since Alex Rodriguez from Sept. 4-9, 2007. In 2008, he hit eight straight homers from June 7-17, the longest streak in baseball since Mark McGwire’s 11 home runs in 2001.

After hitting a career-high 26 home runs in his first full big league season in 2006, Thames has averaged a home run every 14.93 at-bat, the fourth best mark in the American League during that time.

During his nine major league seasons with the Yankees, the Texas Rangers and the Detroit Tigers, Thames earned a .248 career batting average with 113 home runs and 294 runs batted in during 604 games.

To contact the reporter on this story: Nancy Kercheval in Washington at nkercheval@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Sillup at msillup@bloomberg.net

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

© Copyright (c) National Post

Recently retired Los Angeles Dodgers manager Joe Torre might not be unemployed for long. He is talking to baseball commissioner Bud Selig about a potential job with Major League Baseball, according to a New York Daily News report Saturday.

Torre left the Dodgers after the 2010 season and, according to the report, he and Selig have been discussing the possibility of Torre stepping into the MLB executive vice president of operations post vacated by Sandy Alderson, who was hired by the New York Mets as general manager.

Selig is thought to also be considering other options but wants an accomplished baseball veteran for the position, according to the report. Torre, 70, fits the bill in that regard, having played for 17 years in the majors for the Braves, Cardinals and Mets before a managing career that included stints with those three teams in addition to a stellar 12-year run with the Yankees and the past three seasons in Los Angeles.

Torre isn’t suffering from a dearth of job options, but he’s in no rush to make a decision.

“I have been putting it off every month,” Torre said in early December at the winter meetings in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., where he was one of four retiring managers honored by baseball commissioner Bud Selig at a news conference. “I have been saying, ‘I’ll do it after this, that or the other thing.’ As it turns out, I’m going to wait until after the first of the year and see what happens. … I have had some inquiries about broadcasting, which certainly is tempting because I did it for six years and I enjoyed it.”

Torre also hasn’t ruled out the possibility of returning to the Dodgers in some type of front-office capacity, an option he and Dodgers GM Ned Colletti have discussed.

“I thank Ned for just allowing me to take some time and for making a place for me if that is what I decide to do,” Torre said in early December.

ESPNLosAngeles.com’s Tony Jackson contributed to this report.