J.D. Martinez Stays With Red Sox For Now
When J.D. Martinez signed his five-year, $110 million contract with the Boston Red Sox two years ago, it included multiple opt-outs, the first of which came this offseason. Martinez could continue with his current deal, which will pay $62.5 million over the next three seasons, or take a $2.5 million buyout and become a free agent, likely with a qualifying offer attached. Martinez has elected to stay with the Red Sox under his current contract, as first reported by Jeff Passan and Jon Heyman.
Martinez has certainly lived up to his end of the bargain in its first two years. In 2018, he put up a six-win season thanks to 43 homers and a 170 wRC+ as the Red Sox won the World Series. While Martinez didn’t come close to matching those numbers in 2019, a 139 wRC+ and 3.2 WAR still made him one of the better hitters in the game. As he heads toward his age-32 season, Martinez seems to have found the comfort of a $62.5 million guarantee more inviting than what might have awaited him on the open market. The move is a bit surprising, but with the Red Sox unlikely to pursue him should he have opted out and the Yankees perhaps out of the mix with their focus on pitching, the number of suitors in the American League in need of a designated hitter, even one as good as Martinez, might not have been as great as needed to significantly improve his current contract.
Of next year’s potential contenders, consider that the Astros, Indians, Twins, A’s, and Angels already have designated hitters pretty much locked in. Which teams remain that might have made big bids on Martinez? The Rangers or the White Sox perhaps, though the former would have had to cut bait with Shin-Soo Choo while the latter’s decision to extend Jose Abreu a qualifying offer probably would have made Martinez a less good fit. The Royals and Tigers, as well as the non-Yankees and Red Sox teams in the AL East, are either ultra-frugal (the Rays) or unlikely to be competitive next season (the Orioles and Blue Jays). The Mariners didn’t seem like a great fit for the same reason as that AL East duo, and the National League was likely off limits given Martinez’s defensive issues. The risk of the market drying up was reasonably high, and with another opt-out after next season, a good 2020 would position Martinez to only have to beat two years and just under $40 million.
In our Top 50 Free Agents list, where Martinez ranked fifth assuming that he would opt out, Kiley McDaniel predicted the DH would garner three years and $77 million as a free agent, while the crowd predicted about $10 million more. Those are reasonable forecasts, but the upside seems to have ended up being worth less than the potential downside. This what Kiley had to say:
I prefer Grandal as a player since he’s younger and has a much greater margin for error, but am projecting Martinez for a bit more money since he would be opting out of three years and $62.5 million to hit free agency. With another opt out after 2020, he could also effectively opt in for a one year and $23.75 million before hitting the market again. He’ll only opt out if he had very good reason to believe that there was at least $70 million out there for him.
The decision shows Martinez’s confidence level. Meanwhile, Jay Jaffe, in his free agent blurb for Martinez, raised concerns about his level of play:
Not only did he not hit the ball quite as hard in 2019 — his exit velocity dipped from 93.0 to 91.3, while his xwOBA dropped from .421 to .401 — he did far less damage against four-seam fastballs 95 mph or higher; over the past three seasons, his xwOBA against such pitches has dropped from .505 to .473 to .351, while his xwOBA against all four-seamers has fallen from .535 to .476 to .419. Between the suggestion that his bat is slowing down as he moves into his mid-30s and his defensive liabilities (-15.1 UZR and -17 DRS over the past three seasons), he could find the market less hospitable than his last time around.
While rumors swirl about the future of Mookie Betts, Alex Speier notes that the Red Sox could try to see what the market holds for Martinez.
Worth noting: Amidst speculation that this could push the Sox to trade Mookie Betts, while they’ll surely at least examine the market for Betts, they’ll just as surely do the same with Martinez.
— Alex Speier (@alexspeier) November 4, 2019
While Martinez is a good bet to over-perform the value of his contract, the downward trend noted by Jay, plus the potential dearth of suitors as noted above, could make finding a trading partner difficult. If the Red Sox are only interested in dumping the salary, they shouldn’t have to try too hard to find a taker, but if they are looking to add talent in the deal as well, it could prove difficult. (Why the Red Sox feel the need to cut salary and move talent when they have a contending team in a tough division is a reasonable question.)
With Martinez back in the fold, the Red Sox have a luxury tax payroll of roughly $236 million. Taxes will add another $15 million to Boston’s spend if they make no moves. Trading Martinez would save his $23 million salary, plus another $12 million in taxes. Meanwhile, trimming three wins from the roster without an increase elsewhere will reduce Boston’s chances of making the playoffs. The club will have to decide where its priorities lie.
J.D. Martinez is a good hitter who earned his $110 million contract and all the provisions that came with it. He’s elected not to exercise his opt-out this winter and, at least for now, will stay with the Red Sox under the terms of that deal. It’s proved beneficial to both parties, though so some self-imposed budgetary constraints might end up putting Boston in a difficult spot this offseason.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
Your figure of $236MM is considerably higher than most other estimates I’ve seen of where payroll stands now looking ahead to 2020. I’ve seen three others that have them coming in under the $228MM level by a comfortable margin.
They already have $140M committed to 6 players, not including Betts who might get $30M in arbitration. They still need 19 more players after that. They could dump one of those 7 guys, but with so few people signed any speculation on final payroll is a guess with huge error bars.
Just some feedback but the last sentence of the second paragraph is way too long to digest. Took multiple re-reads to lock in that “should he have opted out” was hypothetical.
“The move is a bit surprising, but with the Red Sox unlikely to pursue him should he have opted out and the Yankees perhaps out of the mix with their focus on pitching, the number of suitors in the American League in need of a designated hitter, even one as good as Martinez, might not have been as great as needed to significantly improve his current contract”
“Why the Red Sox feel the need to cut salary and move talent when they have a contending team in a tough division is a reasonable question” and “Meanwhile, trimming three wins from the roster without an increase elsewhere will reduce Boston’s chances of making the playoffs. The club will have to decide where its priorities lie”
I really respect your attempt to be just observational and not opinionated in your portrayal of these decisions. That said, I think FanGraphs needs to put out a preemptive piece highlighting which teams might these types of ‘cost-saving despite being a contender and also the ability to cover the costs’ decisions. It would be a bold take but honestly one Dave Cameron would have little hesitation in writing because it needs to be explicitly called out.
Definitely. It’s understandable that the Red Sox would want to bring their payroll in line over the long run. It’s less understandable why they would want to do it in one offseason at the risk of shipping off their best player in 50 years and decimating the core of a team that won the World Series 12 months ago – all while being owned by one of the wealthiest men on the planet (yeah, yeah, wealth ≠ income, blah blah).
It worked out super well for Cleveland
Is Martinez really a lock for 3+ WAR?
With his profile his performance is just as likely to inch down again as to inch up.
Is that worth 67/3?
He doesn’t think so.
Boston might explore a trade but even a dump looks unlikely, other than maybe the Jays or Royals.
And why would one of those teams bail out the sox by taking that salary dump? JDM is not pushing either of them over the line any time soon. So who’s is left that’s an AL contender that could afford and would want to take him on at his salary?
Yankees: Too many DH types; don’t deal with Boston; wouldn’t want to bail them out.
Rays: Unlikely to take on that much money for a DH.
Twins: Already have Cruz.
Cleveland: Unlikely to take on that much money when they may be looking to deal Kluber or Lindor.
Astros: Already have Alvarez; more likely to look at re-signing Cole or signing extensions for current players.
A’s: Already have Davis; no way they take on that much money.
Angels: Already have Ohtani for the bulk of DH at-bats; far more likely to pursue players like Cole/Rendon/Strasburg/Grandal
Rangers: Still have Choo and Calhoun; probably more likely to pursue Cole/Rendon/Strasburg
White Sox: Maybe, but really should be aiming higher if they want to contend and leave DH available for off days for Abreu and Jimenez.
Every other AL team is really a non-contender if they’re being honest with themselves.
I suspect the sox would have to eat salary or send some prospects to make a deal happen.
I said maybe.
But neither is winning any time soon yet hey still need to sell tickets and to do that they need to wave something that says “we’re trying” . For all the griping over “tanking” , teams take almost as much flak over incremental gains along the way.
It’s not as if it would mortgage the team’s future like the Hosmer deal.
It would just give them an extra veteran bat and a loterry ticket or two while they wait for their future to take shape.
But as I said, it’s just a maybe.
the market is basically the same from when the red sox waited out JDM. nobody wants an aging one dimensional hitter
I would put them in the unlikely category as well but I wouldn’t complete rule out the Blue Jays. They’ve got a good, young core to build around in Vlad, Bichette and Biggio and a ton of money to spend. Wouldn’t surprise me to see them try to make a run for it now. Their rotation should be their first priority but they could certainly use someone like JDM.
Modern FOs want versatility out of players and generally don’t want a DH only player (Ohtani pitches).
Also he’s better off waiting for the NL to implement the DH.
So what does Betts bring back in trade?
On the one hand, he’s a 27 year old, true 5 tool player who projects for about 6.5 WAR next year which would be at least a 4 win upgrade for half the teams in baseball. He could be an EIGHT win upgrade for a team like the Blue Jays, White Sox, or Pirates. The White Sox especially think they might start to be competitive next year and only really have, at best, 2 MLB ready OF’s in the system right now – Jimenez and Robert.
On the other hand, he’s probably going to make in excess of $25M (Spotrac estimates $27.7M) next year and then hit free agency, so the excess value on his contract is “only” about $30M, give or take. This isn’t like trading Chris Sale at roughly the same age, but 3/$39 left on his deal (although more risk since Sale is a pitcher). Boston got 17.4 WAR for that $39M and it is unlikely Betts would get his new team anything close to that kind of value unless he signs long term.
So if 1 WAR is worth $9M, Betts gets $28M in arbitration, and puts up 6.5 WAR, he produces $24M in excess value. According to this article from a year ago:
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/an-update-to-prospect-valuation/
That’s only worth about a single 50FV prospect. According to THE BOARD, that’s somebody in the 38 – 106 range. It depends on the team and where they think they are on the win curve of course, but I think a lot of teams might prefer someone in that range under control for 6 years over one year of Betts and I don’t know if the Red Sox would be satisfied with that kind of return anyway. Whoever he plays for in 2020 gets a compensatory draft pick as well which adds to his value some, but not enough to get a top 10 prospect back for him.
Feel free to point out any errors in my logic or math. I might be missing some huge, important factor. I’m really just interested in what everybody’s opinion is on what a Mookie Betts trade looks like.
Your analysis is mostly correct, though $24M surplus comes at $8M/WAR. $30.5M surplus results from $9M/WAR. This range narrows the prospect coming back to the 46th-74th best prospect in baseball. If the Red Sox traded Betts, I think it would be more for a slow-starting former Top-20 prospect like the Rays acquired in Glasnow or Meadows, since that player would be able to produce on the ML roster from day 1. I see the Red Sox furiously trying to sign him to an extension this year to the 2nd largest contract in the history of the sport (In nominal terms anyway, ARod’s contracts probably will still exceed Betts’ in real $.), so I think talk of a Betts trade is moot anyway.
White Sox beat reporters rumored in early Sept that the team would be interested in JDM were he to opt out so they could be a trade target for the Red Sox. JDM offers maybe $10M in surplus over the life of his deal, so this would be a very light prospect return for the Red Sox and the Fangraphs Prospect Valuation wouldn’t be appropriate to use since this would be more of a salary dump. For the White Sox, he’s much better than Encarnacion, but is his premium over Encarnacion the smartest way to use payroll capacity? Maybe — if the WSox don’t think they can entice guys like Wheeler, Odorizzi, and Grandal to sign with them.
That’s sorta what I was thinking, thanks.
I know Boston is running afoul of the luxury tax, but it just makes so much more sense from a baseball standpoint to unload the bank vault for Betts than to trade him for the 50th best prospect in baseball straight up. It makes much more sense for them to try to dump Martinez’s salary and not expect much back in return if they are desperate to get under the threshold. I’d rather have Betts and an organization filler/lottery ticket than Martinez and the 50th best prospect if it’s an either/or thing.
White Sox can treat a Martinez dump trade as a fallback if they first and second choice refuse to take their money. So any such move would come late Jan or darly Feb.
As long as their preferred choices remain an option any trade will be backburnered.
Well there’s value in having Betts for ONLY 1 year. As in, if you want a 7 win player you generally have to dish out a 10+ yr contract. So on top of the $/WAR thing, I think you also have to add in value that there is virtually no risk because of such a short commitment to such an elite talent.
Plus on top of that, the value of the comp pick + the right to negotiate a long term contract with him.
Betts won’t bring back a Sale like haul, but I’d be surprised if Boston didn’t get at least 2-3 good prospects (perhaps something like 55/50/45 prospect package). I mean Betts would probably be The best player traded.. in 10-15 years? There’s no way they aren’t getting a big haul
Doubtful. A half-season of Machado only returned an FV40+ plus 3 FV40’s. Machado is only a 5-win player while Betts is 6.5 and 1-year is on offer, but a single FV50 is fairly reasonable. I don’t think the option to extend him is worth any extra premium, since Boston would have signed him if he were willing.
I’m open to the idea that 1-year of Betts would return more, I just can’t think of any recent trade as a precedent. That’s why we have to use the kludgey surplus-value calculation.
If I recall, Machado returned a package of 45/40/40/40/35 prospects. And the 45 (Diaz) was actually ranked/regarded much higher in other outlets (some had him as a top 50 prospect which was probably closer in line to his value with the o’s).
Plus, I think Betts has a lot more value than Machado. 1 yr vs 2 months. Betts is better. Plus the comp pick. I’d estimate Betts right now having more than double Machados value when he was dealt.
On top of that (the point I was trying to make) was that the more value that is squeezed in a shorter window, the more valuable an asset. In that regard I believe Betts to be more valuable than standard $/WAR as you are getting a *ridiculous* amount of value in a very short time which is more valuable than a player with the same $/WAR figure spread over 3 or so years.
You’re correct on the Machado trade, Diaz was a 45 so maybe 1 year of Betts could return more. Now that I think of it, 1.5 years of Stroman returned an FV45+ plus an FV45, thus I think Betts could return an FV55 + FV45.
Yeah that sounds a lot closer to what I was thinking. 55+45/50 FV
So in theory maybe Waters + Wright in Atlanta
I never thought he’d opt out this year but will next year. Due $23.5 this year, then 19.375 the next to after that.
If the Red Sox trade Betts, it’s gonna get ugly in Boston. The fact that they’re considering it is borderline madness. What’s the point of having a zillion dollars if you can’t keep the team’s biggest star? Losing Betts puts the team firmly behind the Rays and Yankees for the forseeable future, with no one coming up from the minors to bail them out–the only way out is to spend money.
I get that teams don’t want to hit that top luxury tax penalty because moving picks back is annoying, but otherwise paying the tax is not that bad at all if you have as much money as the Red Sox do.
Moving picks back hampers rebuilds/reloads.
And the Sox farm is weak already.
Their problem is they’ll get murdered if they trade him, murdered if they lose him in FA, and clobbered if they have to outbid the field. Lose-lose-lose.
Those pitcher contracts are killing them.
“Those pitcher contracts are killing them.”
Don’t believe this nonsense ownership propaganda. They can easily afford Betts, it’s just a matter of, as the article puts it, where their priorities lie.
I don’t know that they get murdered if they lose him in FA. Unless he is coming off a monster 2020 hes going to be hitting FA at a comparable level that Cano did when he left the Yanks. And there was some hand wringing when he left but ultimately the Red Sox should know his value better than anyone. So if they let him walk, there’s a good chance that it’s because he got a better deal then they thought he was worth.
I don’t know why anyone thinks this 84 win over budget team is going to suddenly contend next year. Replacing Martinez with vintage Ruth is not going to get them to 90 wins. If they can give Martinez away and non-tender Bradley they can get started building a team. They will get more for Betts in the QO next year than in a trade right now. Bloom will find someone to more than replace Bradley’s dead spot in the lineup and move Betts to CF.
Their BaseRuns record was 89 wins so I don’t see how 90 wins is fanciful. The big question is the health of the rotation, which could put them well over 89 wins or far, far under it.
And really, if you’re being honest with yourself, replacing Martinez with vintage Ruth would instantly turn the Red Sox into an offensive juggernaut. Even if you assume Ruth will DH and won’t play the field, you’re still looking at a minimum of an 8.5-win player replacing a likely 3.5 win player.
Who would have thought a 108 win team would lose *24* wins and turn into an 84 win team in one season with the same exact roster? When you factor in the improved seasons of Devers, bogaerts, and Vázquez it’s even more puzzling.
Baseball is a funny game. If they returned the same roster as they did last year, they probably would win more than 90 games and get a wild card spot.
Yea pretty much this. I doubt anyone would be surprised to see the Red Sox contend immediately. Betts hits another dozen just enough home runs and Sale returns to a top 5 pitcher and they could win the AL east running away. Or they could miss the playoffs again. That is why they play the game.
Sale obviously wasn’t as dominant, but he had the 29th highest fWAR, 28th best FIP, and 4th bets xFIP in all of baseball. Even in a down year, he was pretty good.
The most concerning things with him are the fact that he hasn’t thrown more than 158 IP the last two years and his velocity was down 2 MPH last year.
I get confused when people complain about the Sale extension though.
His 5/$145M is substantially below market-rate. Even including this season health-scare(which obviously didn’t come into consideration last off-season), wouldn’t Sale’s market look pretty similar to Strasburg?
Sale 17’-19’: 520 IP, 3.08 ERA, 2.57 FIP, 17.4 WAR
Strasburg 17’-19’: 514 IP , 3.15 ERA, 3.16 FIP, 14 WAR
If you were looking to sign Sale on the FA market last off-season, He’d be looking for AT LEAST $200M. I mean, can you name 5 starters you would prefer for next season? Scherzer,Cole,Verlander, DeGrom….uh….Buehler maybe?
Complain about Eovaldi’s deal all you want though. He should have been in the 3/$30M glut with pre-Cy Young Lance Lynn,Minor,Sonny Gray..etc. Not with the Homer Bailey/Jeff Samardjiza 2.0 contract
Detroit and Philly took longer to achieve a similar shift but sooner or later it comes to everybody.
Normally underperforming teams like this get new managers but nobody is going to buy Cora going from “genius” to goat this fast.
Realistically 90-95 games is doable. But that might not even get them a wild card.
Boras and Martinez are facing reality. They both know this is the best deal he will get.
Aging bad fielding OF with (possibly) declining power?
Shouldn’t teams be lining up, hoping for a rebound?
Or maybe…not?
A good deal in hand is better than gambling.
“ number of suitors in the American League in need of a designated hitter,”
I can’t be the only one who thinks it is a bit odd that Martínez has never attempted to play 1B. I don’t know if he is unable to , unwilling To , or the team was unwilling to try it( I mean most DHs play 1B in NL-parks,especially when the Red Sox had nothing from the position for most the season).
I mean if he showed he could play “adequately” at 1B, the Nationals,Brewers, D-Back, or Twins suddenly make sense.
As for Martinez’s opt-out. I am a bit surprised, I mean Edwin Encarnacion got the same exact same 3/$60M(with 4 year team option) nearly 4 years ago at a similar age, but worse performance. As mentioned above, even a passable 1B performance could have lead to an interesting comp with Goldschmidt’s 5/$130M as a high end target.
But I guess Nelson Cruz’s 1/$15M(sure he is a lot older, but dude is Ripken-esque with 2013 being his last season with under 600PA prior to 2020) and Khrush Davis’s 2/$34M(he was younger) scared the crap out of him.
It’s tempting to think of the defensive spectrum as this gradient that players can always step down whenever they want. Martinez plays a horrible left field, hence he should play a passable first base, or so the thinking goes. But Boston of all places should know the limitations of that kind of thinking, given the meme-ish Hanley Ramirez in left field experiment. He was coming from being a bad shortstop to something at the diametric opposite end of the defensive spectrum, so you would have expected at least something *passable*, but instead he was completely atrocious. And then a year later when he moved to first base (back in the infield!), while he wasn’t putrid, he still was a liability.
I doubt Martinez can play first base adequately, for exactly the reasons you stated: it would open up his market massively, likely pushing him to opt out, except he *didn’t* opt out.