Victor Martinez had the worst year of his career last year. In fact, according to Fangraphs, he had the worst year of anyone in MLB last year. In addition, he posted the ninth-worst statistical season of this century (out of 2911 players) for any player with 450 plate appearances. This is even worsened by the fact that he is almost entirely a designated hitter and only played 10 games in the field last year. By DH standards, he had the 10th worst offensive season by a DH of all time (out of 455 players) by posting numbers 23 percent below league average (77 wRC+).

Educated analysts already agree that Martinez was hobbled by injuries last year and is set for a bounce back year. I wholeheartedly agree and will break down numbers to support that argument in a rational and chronological fashion.

Martinez tore his left ACL in 2012, forcing him to miss the entire season. However, he had 15 months to recover from his ACL Surgery. You may remember his 2013 season was very dichotomous. He struggled to pull and drive the ball in the first half of the season, which largely contributed to an offensive production 11 percent less than league average (89 wRC+).

He only pulled the ball 35.4 percent of the time in the first half that year, the lowest mark of his career. He also had a decreased line drive percentage (18.7 percent compared to a career 20.9 percent). These marks significantly rebounded in the second half as he had a 43.4 percent pull rate and a 27.2 percent line drive rate. He posted offensive production 48 percent better than league average (148 wRC+) during the second half.

This lead into his incredible 2014 contract year where he produced a 167 wRC+, by far the best of his career. The Tigers rewarded him with a four-year, $68 million contract that came with its share of criticisms and doubts.

Although less intensive than an ACL repair, he had arthroscopic knee surgery to repair a torn medial meniscus in February 2015. He returned to action less than six weeks later, played in 10 spring training games, and was in the Opening Day lineup.

Generally, individuals return to normal activity after arthroscopic knee surgery in four to eight weeks, making his timeline sound reasonable. However, those individuals aren’t typically 6’2", 210 pounds, with a previous ACL repair on that same knee, and put an incredible amount of strain on that knee with each and every swing. Hindsight is always 20/20, but we can infer that there would have been significant advantage in delaying his return, especially with that newly inked $68 million contract.

Martinez clearly struggled out of the gate in 2015. In 36 spring training plate appearances, he hit .143/.167/.314 with two home runs, five strikeouts, and only one walk. Although we cannot put too much stock into the small sample sizes that are spring training numbers (Martinez struggled to a lesser degree and hit .253/.325/.333 in the aforementioned 2013 spring training), this was clearly another sign.

He started the regular season with a 52 wRC+ and had the sixth-worst April of any qualified MLB hitter. Along with a hasty return, a poor spring training, and a dismal April, a distinct pattern was developing. Yet, despite reports on April 12th and April 19th that his knee was not entirely healthy, it took another atrocious 13 games in May hitting 50 percent worse than league average to prompt a 31-day visit to the disabled list.

The rest and rehab seemed to be effective as he rebounded to near-peak form in the 30 days following his return from the DL. In those games, he hit .330/366/.567 and seemed to be back on track. However, from that date forward, he hit .220/.267/.323 including the second-worst August of any position player. Despite putting up an atrocious August, being 20 games out of first place, and 12 games out of the Wild Card, the Tigers continued to play him for the majority of September. He played his last game on September 28th and sat out the remainder of the season due to a quadriceps injury.

Quadriceps injury is a well known consequence following knee surgery. This occurs due to a condition called "arthrogenic muscle inhibition" which is described as "a typical consequence of joint injury when the body's protective, reflexive, and unconscious responses are to alter neural drive to the surrounding musculature. This reflexive 'shut-down' of a joint's surrounding musculature is initially protective. Unfortunately, [it] prevents complete activation of a muscle and, thus, may impede recovery after injury." Martinez even admits in an interview this past week that he altered his swing due to nagging pain which was likely a main contributor to the quadriceps injury.

It makes sense why he struggled. In fact, he never struggled batting right-handed. He posted a 138 wRC+ against left-handed pitching over the course of 2015, which is actually slightly better than his career averages. However, he struggled mightily against right-handed pitching. His wRC+ of 62 in 2015 is 50 percent worse than his career norms (wRC+ of 124 against RHP from 2002-2014).

This is especially problematic, because the majority of MLB pitchers are right-handed and Martinez had nearly four times as many plate appearances against righties than lefties. Since he's a switch hitter, he always bats from the left side of the plate against right-handed pitching. As the left knee is the rear leg in this stance, it takes the brunt of the kinetic force of the swing.

Although not all far off from his career averages against RHP, he struck out more (10.1 percent to 11.2 percent), he walked less (9.0 percent to 6.2 percent), hit fewer line drives (21.1 percent to 20.1 percent), pulled the ball less (45.1 percent to 39.6 percent) and had a lower home run to fly ball rate (9.8 percent to 7.0 percent).

When he did hit fly balls, they didn’t have much pop behind them, averaging 298 feet (or 207th out of 345 players). When he did hit home runs, they tended to be wallscrapers, averaging 378 feet (or 278th out of 336 qualified players). Two of his 11 home runs were considered "lucky" and another two were considered "just enough."

The knee injury also didn’t help his base-running. Although he’s a historically poor runner, he was the sixth-worst baserunner in baseball last year. In addition, he had the lowest infield hit rate in MLB (0.6 perdent) since Adam Dunn in 2011.

I can’t entirely say why he was on the field so early, but fingers could theoretically be pointed in many directions. There were several red flags at multiple points during the season where he should have been on the disabled list. This is especially inexcusable after reports that he wasn’t entirely healthy surfaced over a month before he was actually designated to the disabled list.

Furthermore, after the season was essentially over at the end of August, he was still out there putting his knee at risk in entirely meaningless baseball games. I understand the desire to win a World Series, but sometimes the damage of an injury cannot be undone. I hope he returns back to his pre-2015 form. Five months should be enough time to recover from this, and he says he is finally healthy.

Projections systems are mildly optimistic for his season with forecasts for 4-16 percent offense above league average (104-116 wRC+). This would equate to roughly one win above replacement or WAR. Considering that he produced two wins below replacement level last year, this would be a huge improvement.

Every win will count with this seemingly deadlocked and wide-open AL Central (Fangraphs projects every team in the division to win between 78-84 games). It’s no secret that the Tigers are very heavy with right-handed hitting. With Victor Martinez being the only regular in the lineup who can bat left-handed, his return is all the more important. Only time will tell.