Via ESPN New York’s Andrew Marchand, the Yankees and catcher Russell Martin have put talks about a contract extension on hold until after the 2012 season. The two sides were apparently too far apart in terms of desired compensation to make any discussions productive, with the Yankees only offering Martin $20 million over 3 years, according to Jon Heyman. That seems like a pretty reasonable price to me, but the AAV of that contract would be less than what Martin will make in 2012, so it’s not hard to see why he didn’t want lose his first opportunity at the open market for such an offer. Personally I think letting Martin play out the season before offering a multi-year contract is the best idea anyway, given his general trend towards less productivity with the bat. In the not unlikely event he can’t replicate his power numbers from 2011 it could very well make more teams leery of a long-term commitment to Martin and make the price even cheaper. Of course, if he has a big year you risk having the price driven way up, but it doesn’t sound like Martin is interested in taking much of a discount right now anyway.