Red Sox Make Offseason’s Most Obvious Splash
The only thing that could’ve stopped this would’ve been a mystery team, and such a team never came out of the woodwork. From day one, the Red Sox were the favorites to sign J.D. Martinez as a free agent. The Sox just struggled to hit home runs in the absence of David Ortiz, and Martinez went deep a career-high 45 times. Boston had the desire, the money, and the roster space. Oh, sure, the Diamondbacks were in there somewhere, having fallen in love with what Martinez brought to them down the stretch, but they just had the desire and the space, and not so much the funds. They couldn’t have been considered a legitimate threat. And so there was no legitimate threat. Martinez and the Red Sox just needed to accept the circumstances.
Martinez wasn’t going to hold out much longer. But some late give by Boston compelled an actual agreement. The terms: five years, and $110 million. It’s more complicated than that, however, because Martinez can opt out after two years and $50 million, or after three years and $72 million. As such, what we’re seeing is a front-loaded deal that essentially has consecutive multi-year player options. This is more valuable than $110 million, in other words. Given the market, it’s a good deal for Martinez and it’s a good deal for Scott Boras. The final few years are like a safety net.
The Red Sox being a Dave Dombrowski operation, the future can figure itself out when it gets here. We can talk about Martinez’s contract deeper down. For now, for right now, the Red Sox have one of the best hitters in baseball. They’re not going to give the division to the Yankees without a fight.
Simply put, this one’s easy to understand. Martinez’s bat is as good as almost anyone else’s. The Red Sox had money to move, and now, instead of playing Mitch Moreland and Hanley Ramirez, on any given day they can choose one or the other. And since you should never ignore a team’s context, consider where the Red Sox have been. Yeah, Martinez will be a DH, and there’s risk in giving a large contract to someone with limited flexibility. But, you’ve heard about the win curve? The Red Sox have been around that position where extra wins are most valuable. They needed to separate themselves from AL wild-card contenders, while trying to keep up with the Yankees. Martinez won’t add wins to a team that doesn’t need them. In theory, at least, this significantly improves Boston’s chances of reaching the first round. The team was good, and now it is better.
Martinez is a 30-year-old righty. Allow me to present one overview of his profile. Here’s Martinez since he became a regular with the Tigers.
Martinez is a little bit like a one-tool player. I think that plot pretty convincingly makes the case. He’s a well below-average baserunner, and he’s a well below-average defender. There’s a reason he’s going to DH. Martinez, also, strikes out pretty often, and he’s not someone known for his patience. Across many categories, you wouldn’t think that J.D. Martinez is all that special. But, that one tool — when Martinez makes contact, he’s almost unparalleled. It’s not that he hits the ball as hard as Aaron Judge or Giancarlo Stanton. Yet Martinez has mastered the ideal ball in the air. You might say he generates optimal trajectories.
Here’s another plot. This one also compares Martinez to his peers, but we’re looking at only the results of contact. We have overall batted-ball wRC+, and then we have wRC+ to the pull side, up the middle, and going the other way.
On contact, Martinez has been almost the best hitter in baseball. To the pull side, he’s been almost the best hitter in baseball. Up the middle, he’s been almost the best hitter in baseball. And going the other way, he has been the best hitter in baseball. For all of Martinez’s shortcomings, his all-fields power is incredible. He’s a threat to go deep to any part of any park, against any strike and many balls. This is a rare profile to achieve.
If there’s concern — and there’s always concern — it’s that all of Martinez’s statistics are backward-looking. The Red Sox are paying for his next few years, and if Martinez were to lose some of his contact quality, he’d become less valuable in a hurry. David Ortiz aged well, and the same has been true of, say, Edwin Encarnacion, but, based on contact rate, Martinez doesn’t possess the same kind of bat control. Still, it’s not hard to look at Martinez and think about him aging like Nelson Cruz, who remains an elite hitter at 37 despite plenty of swings and misses. Martinez has been very good for multiple seasons in a row.
I know that these posts are usually dedicated to team and player analysis. I’d just like to take a quick break here, though, to acknowledge just how far Martinez has come. He was always expected to sign some contract like this, once he hit free agency. Very little about this outcome is surprising. But, in the bigger picture, everything about this outcome is surprising, because, if you’ll remember, in spring training of 2014, J.D. Martinez was released by the Astros. He was a 26-year-old outfielder with a negative major-league WAR. The Astros shopped Martinez and couldn’t find a trading partner. No one thought very much of him.
Martinez had been outrighted the fall before, as well, and by that point he was in the earlier stages of his total swing overhaul. Martinez took his new swing to winter ball, where he mashed. Then, in spring, the Astros just didn’t give him much of a shot, pre-release. When Martinez subsequently joined the Tigers, he put up a 154 wRC+. Astros left fielders, meanwhile, posted the lowest combined wRC+ in the American League. This is old news by now, and every team makes mistakes, but Martinez was a swing-changer before swing-changing caught on. Maybe he was always going to find his level, I don’t know. But Martinez was just barely clinging to a career, and then he turned his entire life around. Just under four years after being dumped, Martinez has signed for a nine-figure guarantee. Just because there’s also Josh Donaldson and Justin Turner doesn’t make the J.D. Martinez story any less inspiring. He’s one of the reasons why more players are willing to change their swings now in the first place.
Okay, so, back to the deal. The Red Sox are really good now. They have control of Chris Sale and Xander Bogaerts through 2019, and they have control of Mookie Betts and Jackie Bradley Jr. through 2020. Baseball America just ranked the Sox 24th in their organizational rankings. It’s not that I think the Sox are necessarily headed for a cliff, but they aren’t getting a whole lot younger. This is a team that wants to win now, because it might not be able to compete with the Yankees’ youth. In those same organizational rankings, the Yankees are in second place. They are, you might say, a daunting rival.
Martinez might be around for two years, or he might be around for three, or he might be around for all five. Do not let yourself get tripped up by opt-out clauses again. The Red Sox didn’t sign J.D. Martinez for two years and $50 million. They signed him for two years and $50 million if he’s really good, but if he’s bad or injured or both, then he sticks around. An opt-out clause is player-friendly. Martinez is getting two of them. They provide extra value to the player, while reducing the team’s chance of getting a strong return on investment.
Where it gets tricky is not knowing what it would’ve taken to sign Martinez without any opt-out clauses. It would’ve cost more money, but we don’t know how much. You can say the Red Sox might not want the last three years of the contract anyway, but they would want those years if Martinez were good through 2019. If he’s not so good, well, the Red Sox are stuck. The Mets gave Yoenis Cespedes a three-year contract with an opt-out after year one. Cespedes was very good, and he opted out and re-signed, for an extra two years and $62.5 million. The Tigers gave Justin Upton a six-year contract with an opt-out after year two. Upton was very good, and he just about opted out and then re-signed — with the Angels — for an extra year and $17.5 million. Johnny Cueto’s a guy who didn’t opt out of his contract, last November. So the Giants are on the hook for another four years and $89 million. Everything that comes after an opt-out clause is basically a future salary minimum, assuming a given player doesn’t misread the market too badly.
The opt-out clause is still so widely misunderstood. It’s just a way of including more value in a contract without including more money. Of course, even for a team, there are better and worse potential outcomes, but the best outcomes are just a little less great. It’s almost impossible for the Red Sox to come away from this contract with a steal. That upside isn’t there.
At the end of the day, though, that’s wonk stuff. That’s important wonk stuff, that every club needs to understand, but if the Red Sox just want to spend money, well, they have the money to spend, and Martinez is an elite-level hitter. This is one team that didn’t try to avoid going beyond the competitive-balance-tax threshold, because last year they remained just under. No, Martinez won’t determine the fate of the Red Sox’ season. That’s at least as much up to guys like Betts and Sale and David Price. But Martinez is something the Red Sox didn’t have before. That is, not since Ortiz’s retirement. It hasn’t been all that long since Ortiz stepped away. For Boston, it felt like it’d been forever.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
It’s crazy that seemingly the only other actual offer was Arizona offering a one-year deal: https://twitter.com/BNightengale/status/965751857376382976
It seems like the Red Sox were hamstrung by offering 5 years/$100 million early in the offseason before everyone knew the free agent market was going to be so slow. You can’t really go lower than your initial offer without really pissing off the other side. JD probably would have just waited it out until mid-season if the Sox had opened substantially lower than that or went lower after seeing the market for him never develop.
This was a weird process. I’m sure Martinez and Boras are disappointed that they got $100m less in total contract value than their initial ask, but when you compare this deal to what other power hitters like Logan Morrison and Mike Moustakas are likely to get, even adjusting for however much better you think JD is, it’s tough to say this is a bad deal for the player given the current market.
I’ve been pretty vocally in the ‘collusion argument has no legs’ camp, but the fact that there wasn’t even a sniff of competition for Martinez seems really weird to me. There were other teams out there with money and need, and to not even check in?
Maybe they did and it wasn’t reported, but once it became public that the Red Sox were at 5/100, as mentioned half of his asking price, there really wasn’t anyone with incentive to jump in? I could even see rebuilding teams like the White Sox biting on the money terms (probably not the opt outs).
Although Boras has worked magic before, mega contracts generally require more than one big spender to be in the bidding. Because his arm is busted, teams don’t see him as an everyday left fielder, and so many teams were trying to stay beneath the tax line or couldn’t afford him that it ruled out basically all NL teams. In the AL, the Yankees might have been involved had they not added Stanton, the Rangers and Blue Jays have too many DHs already and don’t seem to think they’re contenders, the Angels have Ohtani, so that leaves…the Astros? The Twins? These aren’t usually teams you expect to be handing out $100+ million deals in free agency (as a side note, I would expect both of those teams to be interested in Corey Dickerson).
It seems like the players who get paid in free agency now are pitchers, because those are the guys who everyone in baseball needs. Finding bidders for hitters is more complicated.
Unless you are planning to compete starting from 2019, signing JD does not make much sense as you would be paying for his 30 and 31 year old season without getting back much from it.
I find it unlikely that the White Sox would aggressively push for their team ETA to be 2019.
I’m not saying teams would outbid the Red Sox, or that any team made more sense than they did, but usually we hear that front offices at least checked in on a player that they even have a bit of interest in, it was dead silence on Martinez except for Boston and Arizona. It’s just weird, the cool market on Hosmer made more sense because he’s a bigger question mark asking for more.
I just don’t remember the last time I saw a player get dubbed a ‘sure thing’ to a particular team at the start of the off-season, then effectively no one bids against that team, then the guy signs there for a huge discount against his (admittedly inflated) asking price. In the past these markets have always developed to include more teams than were originally associated, that’s how we ended up with Pujols in LA and Fielder in Detroit, for example. There were other teams that made sense, some we’re even argued for on this site, no one really even attempted a ‘hey, let’s see if we can steal Martinez while he’s reportedly angry at Boston’?
To be clear, I am not reacting to any team’s failure to outbid the Red Sox. It’s mostly that there’s usually a flurry of ‘X team ‘checked in’ on player Y’ news, we had all the details on who was in contact with Chris Tillman for heaven’s sake. But I can’t think of seeing anything on him other than Boston and Arizona, and the latter casually, for the entire off-season.
The lack of even casual interest just strikes me as odd, particularly as time went on, his asking price went down, and Boston even appeared to stop negotiations at some points. Odd doesn’t mean collusion, obviously, but it’s something noticeable in an already unusual off-season.
Auctions that start high tend to turn off bidders interest. Actions that start low create hope. This may have been Dombrowski’s strategy all along.
The reason you casually “check in” on a player is because you want to make sure that his asking price and/or the offers he’s gotten are roughly in line with what you were expecting. i.e. you’re saying “you’re looking for $____, right? OK, just checking.”
In this case, the player and the leading suitor both made it very clear and very public what they were looking for. There was no point in even looking in unless someone was willing to get up above $100 million. Nobody was.
Well, if most NL teams take the view that his bad defensive numbers over the past two years are legitimate, then it’s easy to see them deciding that they’re not all that excited about signing Martinez for 5 years and watching those numbers get even worse in the corner outfield. And, between media reports of a Boston offer for 5 years and at least $100 million and Boras’ asking price for Martinez well above that, I can easily see that these NL teams decided it was a waste of time for the front office to spend time trying to close such a large value gap and instead simply moved on to other ideas. As examples, see the Cardinals and Giants trading for Ozuna and McCutchen, respectively. The Diamondbacks seem like an outlier as an NL team with a lot of interest in Martinez.
With AL teams, I don’t see that the list of potential suitors is that long once you consider the money, and I can see various combinations of money and roster construction that cross the Yankees, Angels, Blue Jays, and Astros off that list.
True, I suppose if the argument is that the Red Sox instantly priced their competitors out with their initial offer that would make sense. Also makes it seem like a poor judge of the market by Boston if that’s what happened.
If I ran the Red Sox and I knew my evil twin ran the Yankees, I would have made a “preemptive strike” to keep the Yankees out of the talks – perhaps by forcing them over the luxury tax if they were to exceed my offer. I would also not have cared if doing so cost me an extra ten million. But I also think the worst baseball sins are being “penny wise and pound foolish” and “leaving a fantasy auction draft with unspent dollars”.
Ozuna and Cutch were just massive bargains that carried zero long term commitment. The Pirates and Marlins having a yard sale was likely a huge downer on the FA market for outfielders, as were the low prices on outfielders at the 2017 trade deadline.
No, because we don’t know what other offers might have been had they not done that. They may have overpaid; they may also have preempted a bidding war.
The Price bidding a couple years ago probably has scared away other teams
And look what a guy who can run and play defense just got after averaging 2.8 WAR for the last 2 years. Being paid like a 0.5 WAR guy
There are two possible explanations – teams are dumb, or teams don’t make contract offers based on a WAR calculation times a dollar amount per WAR. I have a strong opinion as to which is the case, but since it is just an opinion and not an analysis I will keep it to myself.
Because two seasons of defensive WAR is an accurate predictor of future WAR? That would be news to me.
If you’re referring to Dyson, that’s not a fair characterization. He’s older and he relies on his speed for everything and he just had surgery. And he absolutely must be platooned, which eats up another roster spot. I think there were really good reasons to be hesitant about him.
It does seem strange that a guy who’s only skill is DH wouldn’t have 20 teams knocking down his door. If ever there was a poster child for collusion JD would have to be it
These player opt-out deals are incredibly good for the player. It’s $24m/year for three years plus an insurance policy of $38m if he cannot get a huge payday elsewhere at age 33. I’d take that any day if I was JDM.
Johansantana17, did they get $100MM less? Boras usually doesn’t start with a specific number; he generally makes the team come with an initial offer he can build from to get the highest market value. The $200M suggestion feels like a media speculation number, one that Boras and Co. had no reason to discourage. The Fangraphs Median Crowdsourse had him at…$110MM. Congrats Fangraphs Median Crowdsource!
I suspect JDM’s side had a 5/100 that never moved. The Red Sox, to close the deal, increased it by $10M, frontloaded it and gave him two opt-outs. Those were likely the late adds to sweeten the deal. If so, it’s a win-win for both sides. A guaranteed $110MM with nearly half of it upfront the first two years, so that limits devaluation further out, and player control with out outs. The Red Sox, meanwhile, get a thumper in his prime at a decent AAV. It’s not a bad thing if he opts out after two years for them either.
https://twitter.com/BNightengale/status/965721495916961792
Sure. First, it’s Bob Nightengale. He has a track record that is not particularly good. No matter. That number is out there and will be repeated without verification. It still falls under media speculation, although if JDM and Boras confirm it I’ll be a believer. Beyond that, most deals are going to start high and settle at some point both sides are comfortable. In this case it seems lower than many expected, although I’d suggest it’s one both sides should be happy with.
Are front-loaded contracts with early opt-outs going to be a thing now?
Three theories in ascending order of pessimism:
It is baseball reflecting the rise of FOMO in American society (fear of missing out).
It may also be a status symbol – all the top guys get an opt out, and I am a top guy, so I need one, too.
It may also be the agents drumming up work to justify their commissions, especially when all the teams value each veteran player about the same and “low service/low commission” agencies have been emerging in recent years.
I think the opt outs are due to teams understanding the aging curve better than players.
If Martinez does 5 WAR for these first 2 years (his 31 and 32 year old seasons) he can opt out thinking he’ll get another big contract, and he might.
But now he’s 33, and check out some of the numbers for players compared to their age 31 year and age 33.
So the Red Sox paid 50 mil for 2 years of 10 WAR, but their off the hook for 60 million at maybe 6 WAR. I think that’s the team’s thought process anyway.
Just one small correction. The first two years of the contract are his age 30 and 31 seasons.
I think you’re right, but there is an alternative way of explaining it. If Martinez thinks he can get a bigger offer from somewhere else, that implies that he thinks there is some team out there that doesn’t understand the aging curve either. Martinez can be wrong or right about the aging curve, but the more important thing is that he thinks someone else will pay him more if he opts out.
So if a team that is cautious enough to avoid overpaying for the decline years once they opt out, then the opt outs are more valuable to the player than they are to the team. Only one team has to give them a bigger contract for it to be worth it for the player, and it doesn’t have to be the original team.
Yes. They are long overdue. It reduces the chance of being massively overpaid or underpaid, which is a reflection of a more efficient market.
Early opt-outs are probably going to be a “thing” for at least awhile, until someone feels particularly burned by it, anyways. It’s not hard to see why they’re so popular. Players get to retain some degree of control over their careers even after signing a long-term agreement. For teams, they add value to the player contract without adding actual dollars. They probably rationalize it, and GMs sell it to ownership, as a situation where if Martinez is opting out after 2 years it means he did really well and that’s a good problem to have. Of course, they’re ignoring the possibility of losing a good player after making a substantial commitment and they’re still on the hook for a lot of years and a lot of money if the player performs poorly, gets hurt, etc. They also can be leveraged into an even longer deal by these opt-outs, which feels like the most common outcome but I don’t know if that’s true, going beyond their original commitment and still ending up on the hook for a bad player on a bad deal.
I think for a team that is over/bumping up against the cap there’s some additional value in these front loaded contracts.
They can essentially pay the player MORE (time value of money) while having the salary for luxury tax purposes be less. Additionally, by front loading and including opt outs they again get to (potentially) have the contract be viewed from a luxury tax purpose as less than what it actually was. What I’m getting at is from MLB’s perspective this is 5 years at 22/yr but it is potentially 2 years at 25 per. As I understand it MLB will not go back and retroactively “bill” Boston for actually having payed out that contract at 25 per year.
So the Red Sox payroll at the moment is somewhere in the neighborhood of $235-$240 million. They will probably lower it slightly before opening day by moving someone, maybe Brock Holt, but it sure looks like they are going to have the highest payroll in baseball this year. I have to say, I’m surprised John Henry was OK going that high. The Red Sox have never had the highest payroll in baseball, I believe, and I didn’t think they would do so this year. But this signing proves me wrong.
You can certainly nitpick moves the Red Sox FO have made, but Henry shows no signs of stopping when it comes to spending money on the team. After some recent free agent busts that I don’t need to name, it’s good to see him still willing to spend money on players.
They haven’t been higher than the Dodgers or Yankees, but they’re always been up there, as they should be with their revenue base. They surged ahead this year for two reasons. First, the Dodgers and Yankees made a commitment to get under the LT threshold, and have been putting pieces in place the last few seasons aiming to get under in 2018. The Red Sox see that, so that’s an inflection point when you probably shouldn’t spend less. If your competition is reducing, it might be the right time to increase. Second, they are now entering year three of their current win-now cycle. They’ve won their division the two prior years, but have exited early in the postseason. They need to maximize their opportunities now as their main competition, the Yankees, are just entering their win-now cycle and will likely be huge spenders again as soon as 2019.
Median crowdsource with a bullseye this year: Crowd predicted 5/$110 million.
Of course, the crowd didn’t include the opt out, which is probably the equivalent of 5/$127 million (someone actually calculated that out on the Eric Hosmer comments, I think they said it was about $18 million but I can’t be sure…maybe it is worth more because he has two of them?).
A 5/$125 million contract to Boston always seemed like the most obvious conclusion, and the Red Sox are probably pretty happy that they got him for something in that range. He’s an awesome Top 10-type hitter, and when you have a hole at DH getting an awesome hitter is what you want.
One other thing Jeff mentioned, about Hanley…one thing I like about the Red Sox is, despite making a bunch of dumb moves, they’re not afraid to jettison sunk cost. The Angels are busy moving half-decent guys like Cron to trot Albert Pujols out there, and the Red Sox are saying “so what if we’re paying Hanley Ramirez $20 million next year?” Maybe it’s easier because Dombrowski didn’t give Hanley that contract but if I’m a fan of a big market team, I want the GM to be able to take big risks and not be afraid to jettison them if necessary.
Hanley has a giant vesting option. JDM almost pays for himself for a year by blocking Hanley from reaching the plate appearances required to make his option vest.
In this sense, the deck was really, really stacked in Boston’s favor to get a deal done.
Just for reference: Hanley needs 497 PAs for the $22m option to vest.
Thanks for adding that. I would love to have been there for a negotiation that settled on precisely “497 plate appearances”.
It was 1,050 PA between 2017-18 according to Spotrac, he got 553 last year.
Thanks. That is still a weird number, but not nearly as weird as 497
It is fun to picture a way Hanley gets close to that.
No Carter, it is NOT lol.
It’s not fun to imagine JBJ getting off to a bad start while Hanley does a blistering start, forcing Cora to play him?
Martinez Vs The Green Monster would be an Adventure all its own.
The idea of the BoSox looking at a Prospective $300M payroll for ’19 doesn’t amuse you? Given the tax penalties such a payroll would entail it could lead to some interesting moves. Especially If the Yankees have a big lead at the trade deadline.
1050 is the amount of PA’s he got in 2015 and 2016 combined. So basically his clause was that he had to have as many PA’s in the last two years as the first two years.
How does one differentiate between unimportant wonk stuff and important wonk stuff?
I believe there’s an algorithm to do that, but the derivation is incredibly wonky.
As a quick rule of thumb, a difference of $17M is probably important.
David Stearns just further solidified his hopefully decades-long extension with the Brewers with this signing. Last year the Brewers swiped Travis Shaw and Dubon (#10 prospect) from the Red Sox for as-yet nothing in return, and now the comparisons should start between the J.D. Martinez signing vs. Lorenzo Cain.
Cain has been more productive than Martinez every year since 2011. Martinez’ contract is FAR more player-friendly in terms of dollars (> $$30M), player guarantees, and clauses. Cain is ONE year older and relies more heavily on speed so he should slow down??
My only disappointment is that the Red Sox further bolstered their outfield so the Brewers will be less likely to send over Santana for half the Sox’ farm system. Why wait until these contracts play out before you sing Stearns’ praises, Fangraphs I implore you for an apples to apples breakdown!
Apples-to-oranges. Overall, Cain has put up better WAR numbers than Martinez. But he hasn’t put up better offensive numbers; in fact, his offensive numbers are significantly lower, with much of his WAR value attributable to his defense. The Red Sox don’t need defense from Martinez, they need offense. So while the Cain signing may be fine for the Brewers, it wouldn’t have worked for the Red Sox.
Yep, that’s exactly the problem with the Cain signing. Lots of players who rely on their speed decline in their early 30s.
I don’t understand why anyone is so easily dismissing this obvious problem with the Cain signing, but I see it all the time.
Jeff – Don’t mean to be an ass, but you can’t talk about the trajectory of Martinez’ comps without bringing up steroids. Yes, I know it’s an ugly subject but we do need to acknowledge it. Here are the comps you gave of people who “aged well”:
– David Ortiz – Confirmed steroid user
– Nelson Cruz – Confirmed steroid user
– Edwin Encarnacion – No record, although his sudden spike in HR/FB rate at 29 is weird (and no, his FB rate did not change so I’m not completely buying the “change in swing”)
In short, what you’re implying (not to put words in your mouth) is that in order for Martinez to be worth it for the Red Sox (or himself), he likely has to use steroids.
What are other people’s thoughts here? Am I off-base? It just feels weird to see a scenario (beforehand) where it’s so clear that someone should use, even if it’s against the rules.
Of course you can. There has been a ton of analysis of Martinez’s swing changes that explain the breakout. Fangraphs even had an article predicting a breakout before he was let go by the Astros. There is zero evidence that Martinez has used PEDs.
Farnsworth article from 2013:
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/rule-5-dark-horse-j-d-martinez/
I have re-read the post I was responding to, and it appears I misunderstood the point. To answer the question, no I don’t think Martinez needs steroids to be worth his contract.
lol, no harm ballskwok. i can understand where you were coming from. was not trying to say anything about martinez’ success to this date.
The article you referenced is the best explanation of the science behind the swing plane changes that turned Martinez’s career around, as well as Justin Turner, Chris Taylor, Daniel Murphy, Yonder Alonso and others. I have not seen any information about the players who have tried to adapt this concept and have been unsuccessful. I doubt if anyone would come forward but it would be interesting to know what the success rate is.
He needs to play less defense to get better. He most certainly will play less defense. He needs to not run the bases as much – Fenway is a good park for poor base-runners.
He will do well in Boston. Good signing for the Red Sox
David Ortiz is not a confirmed steroid user.
Now i’m confused by the downvotes. People are down voting me because I mistakenly overstated David Ortiz’ connection to steroids (I re-read what happened and it’s a loose connection to steroids at best… my apologies).
So why is Ron Hoyabemve getting downvotes?
lol why is this being downvoted???
anyway i appreciate the people sticking up for ortiz. at least once a week i see him get called a ‘known steroids guy’ in the comments on here. it always irks me bc its simply a lie for all the reasons others have said here.
despite being a lifelong red sox fan im not naive about this. i feel its pretty likely that he used for all the obvious reasons. where theres smoke thres fire afterall. but thats not the same as ‘known cheat’. thats just not fair to ortiz.
He was cited for testing positive for PEDs.
Ortiz tested positive for steroids at age 27 and Encarnacion never has. There may be some slight validatity to your Cruz comparison as he tested positive at age 32; however, I don’t think many are concerned with how JD’s will perform in the first three years of this deal, the concern is how he’ll perform in years 4 and 5 when he’s 33-34. Granted you probably get some advantage from steroid use for a year or two after you stop using but I don’t think there’s any evidence to support that any of the players you mentioned aged well due to steroids.
Ortiz never tested positive for steroids. He was in the Mitchell report in 2003 before testing was a thing. I’m not an Ortiz guy but I don’t lump him in with the cheaters just because he was amazing as he aged.
Read this :
http://www.nj.com/yankees/index.ssf/2016/09/red_sox_david_ortiz_opens_up_about_2003_positive_p.html
Ortiz was not named in the Mitchell Report. That’s an actual fact. He was reported by the NYT as having been on a confidential list of players (which the FBI seized, and from there it was leaked) who allegedly tested positive for something (we don’t know what). That’s the other actual fact. Anything else is hooey.
What’s more, it was a list with more names than actual positive tests, so even if it the NYT accurately reported that Ortiz was on it, we still don’t know whether he actually tested positive.
It is also a fact that David Ortiz claimed he was going to “get to the bottom” of his link to steroids. Though not a fact in the strictest sense, he never did this.
Pardon me, Ortiz was named on the Mitchell report accusing him on testing positive in 2003. Whether he didn’t or didn’t juice doesn’t change my point, there’s no proof that steroids enabled any of the named players to age well.
As Binyamin already pointed out, Ortiz was not named in the Mitchell Report. The report is available on the internet, you can see for yourself.
I love how originally. It was NY writers, who after seeing what Ortiz had become in 3 short years with the Sox were justifiably terrified and upset, dropped Ortiz’s name but none of that 2003 yankee squad. Then 15 years later people who don’t like Papi (despite zero failed tests in 15 years) still haven’t bothered doing the research into what was actually “confirmed”. Nowadays, if you dont like someone, I suppose it’s perfectly ok still to lie about that person in order to discredit them.
“It was NY writers, who after seeing what Ortiz had become in 3 short years with the Sox were justifiably terrified and upset, dropped Ortiz’s name . . . Nowadays, if you dont like someone, I suppose it’s perfectly ok still to lie about that person in order to discredit them.”
No, just because you don’t like NY writers does not mean it’s OK to lie about them.
Are you implying that all the players who joined the air-ball revolution and transformed their careers are steroid users? It has everything to do with technique, not juice. Read the article that ballskwok referenced.
JDM is the next David Ortiz. A bum at 25 who turned it around from age 26-29. Cant run or play good defense but hits like hardly anyone else. If David Ortiz was a FA after 2005 entering his age 30 season he probably gets 8/160 which is something like 8/240 today adjusted for payroll inflation
Martinez has only played one full season — in his entire career. At age 30, Ortiz was coming off of two monstrous and injury-free seasons. Their risk profiles were quite different.
We need to stop calling “opt-outs” player-friendly outside of context. They are financial options, and simple ones too. Options are good to have as a hedging instrument, but you have to pay for them. As for how much they are worth, well, that depends entirely on the value of the underlying asset — the contract length and cost — which varies substantially. I.e., it doesn’t make sense to say that opt-outs are worth $X, because X is a variable not a constant.
Opt-outs provide players with opportunities to hedge, just like financial options, but there is no evidence that players get them for free. At least not anymore. If the market is efficient then opt-outs shouldn’t be player-friendly or team-friendly; in practice I bet that they are somewhat more team-friendly, because players probably have irrational confidence in themselves.
Opt outs are team friendly in the sense that JDM’s contract is significantly better for him compared to a vanilla 5 year 110 M contract.
This is a fairly simple point that you think everybody would understand, but a surprisingly large number of people don’t.
Did you mean player friendly?
Oops. Of course. I hope the error is pretty obvious.
Opt-outs are 100% player friendly. It is all downside for the team and no upside. After 2 years, JDM will have 3 years/$75 million remaining on his contract. If he is a monster during those 2 years and feels like he is worth more than that, he can opt-out and sign for a larger contract. Which means if there were no contract, then at that moment, the Red Sox have an asset on their hands. They could go to other teams and say we have JDM for 3 years/$75 million but he’s worth more than that.
The opt-out takes that away from the Red Sox, while simultaneously leaving with the Red Sox the downside risk that the contract is underwater after the first 2 years.
Shampain’s point is that while the function of the option that you isolated is team-friendly, it is an isolated function. Options aren’t free to the player, they are part of a trade off (likely for total dollar value). So to automatically call them “team-friendly” is wrong. They’re just part of the deal that should be analyzed in full.
I meant player-friendly too. Whoops.
Opt outs are always, always, always “player-friendly”. They don’t have to use them if they don’t want to.
Is it worth more to them than an extra $20 million or whatever we calculate that to be? That’s a different question, and I agree that calculating that is going to be tough.
Player opt outs can benefit the team too, since a team can escape paying from the decline years and let some other fool pay instead. But that just means that both the team and the player are likely to win.
I think this gets at a more complete way of looking at it. The range for an opt-out is from “one-sided benefit to the player” to “win-win for both sides.” There’s not really a way for the team to benefit and not the player unless the player’s agent badly misreads the market, and given the front-loaded nature of these contracts, it’s extremely unlikely that a player in position to opt out can’t at least get the same money with an extra guaranteed year or two on the open market..
This case strikes me as being closer to the win-win side of the range than the lopsided-player-benefit side because with no opt out, the Red Sox would still be spending similar money for similar years on the risk that Martinez flames out in years 1 or 2. Without the opt out, they’d still be spending similar money over similar years for two or three great seasons from Martinez while expecting the back end to be a sunk cost. But with the opt out, they get those years without being on the hook for the back end (unless they get suckered into extending the contract, but that’s a separate decision-making process). It is true that if Martinez is great all five years, the Red Sox lose the benefit of that production, but given Martinez’s age and profile, as well as the Red Sox’s various age and salary commitments in 2019-20, it sure seems like both sides would be perfectly happy to see Martinez opt out after two or three years.
I would actually go so far as to say they often benefit the team, although they are almost always more beneficial to the player.
I have used this example before in relation to Yu Darvish, but:
1) If the player bombs, they don’t exercise the opt-out, but you would have been on the hook for that money anyway. In this scenario, it doesn’t matter that you gave them the opt-out, and you usually got something for it (namely a lower price on your bombed asset).
2) In the best case scenario, the player performed, you get a few good years and to escape the decline years.
3) Some people say the worst case scenario is that you get a few good years and then have to pay through the nose to keep the guy, and I suppose that is a possibility. But since #2 occurs much more often than #3, it’s quite often worth it for the team to give an opt-out.
“always, always, always’ is overstating it.
Greg Holland opted-out of a 1 YR $17m contract a few months ago, a decision that may prove unprofitable. There are several players who opt out unprofitably, it can happen more than 0% of the time.
Additionally, players (as is maybe relevant to Holland/QO situations) can opt out of shorter contracts to secure longer ones, even if their market value in an AAV sense goes down. Holland again is potentially an example of this. Accordingly, a player objectively worth $10, might opt out of 2/28, to instead lock up 3/30 with another club: still player friendly, but also team friendly.
I don’t think there is any confusion about this issue save the extreme overstatement concerning the player benefit. Terms like “100%” and “always” and “one-sided” are used to describe a contract clause that is fairly complicated and requires the player/agent to make efficient choices for multi-year periods compared to what a market might pay. It is beyond obvious that a player may opt out inefficiently, which makes usage of terms like “100%” or “always” over-the-top.
Clubs have a major information advantage when projecting player performance and utility. Agents, meanwhile, have incentives to overstate their players value and act/bluff accordingly – as many big agencies are ‘repeat game players’ vis a vis a small set of clubs. Clubs have a large competitive advantage over agents/players if the task is to avoid over-estimating an aging player’s future contributions.
Further, players want to be wanted by their clubs, and do have their eyes on the next contract: players may often use an approaching opt-out as a trigger to discuss a new contract, and if the club declines to offer a new contract, a player might be more prone to leave even if his remaining years are a 50-50 bet to be as good as the AAV he will get on the market.
None of the above considerations even require the ‘greater fool’ mystery team bid – but of course history shows that there is not a 0% chance that a 2 WAR player turns down a 2.5-WAR contract option to take a 3-WAR payday from a team doing something odd. These sort of negotiating mistakes happen with a frequency greater than 0%.
So there is some concensus IMO, save only for the over-the-top language:
* opt outs are acquired by giving something else up, $, years, NTC or something
* there is a non-0% chance that the player ends up using the opt out inefficiently, either opting in when he could have made more on the FA market, or by opting out when the market actually proved not willing to match the AAV;
* there is a non-0% chance that a player opts out for more years and total money despite having negligible trade value on a slightly under water contract
All told, there are of course pros and cons with all contract mechanisms, and the opt out matter is a bit more nuanced than some of the extremest-language-possible that can used to describe the player benefit.
i agree with all your bulleted points but im not sure how they prove that opt outs arent always beneficial for the player.
if i gave you a brand new lamborghini totally free it would be a very valuable and awesome gift that would always be a benefit to you. theres a nonzero chance youd drive it way too fast and kill yourself but that wouldnt diminish the value of the gift.
In the same way that rejecting the qualifying offer is always, always, always “player friendly”
Which is to say, not always
Comments at Fangraphs in past years (see comments on David Price signing) were loaded with the (incorrect) opinion that player opt-outs had direct value to the team (team would avoid paying at end of contract, etc.). I think there’s now a greater consensus that player opt outs are of direct value to the player and are offered by the team as a substitute for other forms of compensation. But this consensus is new and feels hard won. So continuing to call these opt-outs “player friendly” is a way not to re-fight that battle. You are fighting the next war: pricing the opt out. I’d argue against trying to use Black Scholes, though maybe it’s helpful for thinking through the concepts. What’s the implied volatility of player prices over the next two and three years?
” assuming a given player doesn’t misread the market too badly.”
And since no one ever turns down a QO and then has to sign a worse contract later, we know it can’t happen
Greg Holland has made a mistake, if only focused on AAV, twice in recent months with the QO and the Wade Davis offer.
Players can also opt out of a deal that slightly over pays them on an AAV basis for a lesser AAV deal with more years- which is a win-win for player and club.
woosh
Wonder if the Corey Dickerson DFA was the catalyst for the signing, as Martinez is now looking at the possibility that the Red Sox could just pick Dickerson up and leave him out of a legitimate option.
If the Sox ever wanted Dickerson, they knew he was a phone call away. If the GM acquired a lesser player and forced Martinez onto the roster of a rival at a bargain price, he would likely be looking for a new job.
I think it is pretty clear that organizations now have a different way of viewing player value that has nothing to do with WAR. Relievers get paid. Guys who hit tons of HRs without providing much other value (Chris Carter, Morrison, maybe Moustakas) are not worth a damn thing.
If they were using WAR Dickerson wouldn’t of gotten released and Hosmer wouldn’t of gotten paid.
“wouldn’t of [sic] … wouldn’t of [sic]”?
Generally speaking, your arguments might be better received if you can refrain from humiliating yourself in the process of expressing them.
Absolutely no need for you to write this, merizobeach.
Eh, it’s harsh, but “would/could/should of” annoys the hell out if me, too.”
carter: it’s “wouldn’t have”
Damn y’all. I enjoy drinking a bottle of wine and reading fangraphs. I also usually do that on a spanish laptop, since my primary broke and I am living out of the country. When I make obvious mistakes I don’t have anything in place to correct me. Also, don’t really care?
I’ll make an unpopular argument.
–Hosmer and Martinez got very similar deals. Hosmer can opt-in to an additional 3/39 but Martinez gets a little more per year for his first five.
–Hosmer was worth more fWAR than Martinez last year.
–Hosmer is projected by Steamer to be worth more WAR next year.
–Hosmer is two years younger.
–Hosmer may be more valuable than fWAR accounts for if his defensive acumen isn’t accurately captured in UZR or DRS; it’s unlikely he’s worse. Martinez doesn’t have a ‘defensive upside’ as someone who will likely DH.
–Yes, Hosmer in even years, and that’s a big deal, but two of the last three years he has been quite good.
–Yes, the Padres and Red Sox are in very different places on the win curve but a lot can change in five years.
I’m confused. Where’s the argument?
I wonder how many teams didn’t want to pay for Martinez because they think he profiles as the kind of player they can replicate. Martinez feels like the poor mans outcome of the swing revolution and he can probably be replicated, he reminds me of Carlos Quentin or David Justice, did either of them deserve to be paid in the top 25 of the league in there time?
Also, he has been very injury-prone. If he had gotten a long-term deal after playing only one full MLB season in his career, it might have been the first in history.
“On contact, Martinez has been almost the best hitter in baseball. To the pull side, he’s been almost the best hitter in baseball. Up the middle, he’s been almost the best hitter in baseball. And going the other way, he has been the best hitter in baseball. ”
If that’s the poor man’s outcome of the swing revolution, I’d love to see the rich man’s outcome.
Yes when he hits the ball he pounds it but by a poor mans outcome of the swing revolution I meant that others such as EE, Bautista, Donaldson & Turner are/were all better versions of the same player, more patience is where I was going with that. If you like the idea of paying a 1 dimensional player who has play 150 games 1 time and averages like 110 games a year, adds no value on defense, is resistant to moving out of the field, never achieved more then 5 fwar in a year and averages 3.5 fwar with a lot of swings an misses and not a lot of walks then I guess he’s the rich mans version for you.
For 110 million you would think a team could get more then a HR hitter in a HR heavy environment and being as all we know is 1 team offered him a 1 year contract and another offered him a 5 year I would argue that the prevailing opinion concurs with me.
I think the prevailing opinion is that JDM is a valuable player and has received a contract approximately in-line with his value.
I’ll concede that he isn’t a MVP-level player, but calling anything less than MVP-level a “poor man’s outcome” seems unfair and discounts the fact that he’s been a very good, consistent player since the swing change.
3.5 WAR, 150 wRC+ players don’t grow on trees, and are immensely valuable regardless of how they get there, whether it’s with a lot of patience and defense or no patience/defense at all (And for reference, EE has never broken the 5 fWAR plateau either and has also averaged 3.5 WAR/year since 2014, so if he’s an example of a success story then I don’t see how JD isn’t)
If you’re looking for a poor man’s outcome of the swing revolution, I would recommend Jason Heyward:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-fly-ball-revolution-is-hurting-as-many-batters-as-its-helped/
Ok fare enough, perhaps I set my level a little high and poor mans version might be a little harsh and as far as offense is considered he is in the top of the league. I suppose my overall point that go away from me is that he has value in 1 area and I thought teams had gotten away from paying these 1 dimensional players this kind of money, especially with all the dead money on the Sox payroll. It also kind of seems like they were the only bidders and Martinez is kind of fragile too while they also assume all the risk on the contract twice over, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the only team willing to offer this kind of contract was the one with Dombrowski running it. I’m happy he’s getting paid, I think it’s great whenever a team ponies up I’m just surprised that he got this much , mind you it makes more sense then the Hosmer contract.
Martinez is literally a top 5 hitter in baseball. How can you reasonably expect to get that type of production out of anyone that’s not an elite caliber player?
I would argue this is a great opportunity cost because you would get to add a Harper/Stabton caliber bat without the 300+ million contract
Top 5 hitter, really? By what measure? On a fantasy team? Top 25 maybe but there is more to hitting then just HR’s, he doesn’t really walk, he isn’t a black hole on the base paths like Morales but he’s not exactly fleet of foot and being as that he will be 31 mid way thru the first year and he just had his career year I can’t imagine other teams weren’t scared of regression or injury.
Well, he’s tied for 4th in MLB over the last 4 years in wRC+.
I didn’t say he sucks but 1 stat a top 5 hitter does not make, a contract like this for a player with JD’s limited skill set is Sandavol or Hanley waiting to happen all over again. I also contending that JD might just have a couple years like last year in him and a lot of people a lot smarter then I with a lot more invested in proper analysis of him think he will. Of course since the Red Sox gave him all the future leverage in exchange for less money? I assume… that means that if JD does stay the player he was last year they’ll either lose him or be forced to pay him more money. I contend that I could be completely wrong and there’s more left in that tank, patience can be taught and if he gains better strike zone recognition maybe he’s peek Bautista or better or moves to first and flourishes. I hope one/some/all of these scenarios occur and he re-enters the market in a couple years and makes oodles of loot – cause f@ck the billionaire owners – I just wouldn’t pay this much for this type of player.
That “one stat” is a linear combination that takes into account basically everything with hitting. If you’d like to cite all of the various things that go into wRC+ instead, be my guest.
I don’t need nor want your help with explaining anything with wRC+ or any other stat, I’m aware of what goes into the stats and frankly I don’t need your condensation.
The Yanks will likely sign Moose this week, they are too close to be gambling on Andujar and Torreyes.
I’m sure they want Machado, but I can’t see Baltimore trading him to a team they despise so much.
It’s hard to see Baltimore not trading Machado now. They stink, and waiting for the trade deadline is risky.
But what team other than NY is all-in and needs a SS/3B ?
Padres should have saved $34 mm, signed Martinez and bought him a first baseman’s glove.
It would be a fun contest to see which of JD Martinez and Wil Myers could play a worse defensive LF and 1B.
I’m pretty sure Wil Myers is the better fielder by far.
“It’s almost impossible for the Red Sox to come away from this contract with a steal. That upside isn’t there.”
False – If he hits like he has three out of the last four years, he’ll have crushed it with 4+ WAR a year and the Red Sox will have gotten $30M of incremental value over the first two years of this contract.
Just because they won’t be able to accrue guaranteed incremental benefit in the last 3 years doesn’t mean they can’t absolutely crush the first 2. The potential is definitely there.
I don’t really disagree with anything you wrote, Jeff, but I think there’s a pretty easy path to Martinez being a steal. Not a hugely likely one, and I guess it depends on one’s definition of a steal, but if Martinez stays healthy and has a 150 wRC+, he’s got to be worth 4.5 or 5 wins. I’m not sure exactly what that’s worth, but for two years that’s got to be like $70 million.
Again, not much of a disagreement, and obviously you’d rather he not opt out at that point, but I think the Sox would be very happy with that outcome.
I dont know hat 150+WRC would be a 4 win player as a DH. the DH penalty would probably sap a few wins off, you cant price him the same as a competent fielder
Has anyone done a Martinez flyball chart Arizona,vs Boston for 2017.
Just wondering how HR totals would differ.
I have to admit, it seems pretty lazy to simply say “out outs are player friendly” and “if Martinez is good, Boston would want those later years”. In reality, at 30 years old and with how he has hit Martinez is a SUPER good bet for the next two years, which is also when Boston needed him most. It is highly unlikely that he collapses in 2018 or 2019, in which case he gets his two years of $25M and Boston gets to avoid $25M or so (what likely would have been required without an opt out) for a player in his ages 32-34 seasons who can’t play the field, while also lowering the luxury tax impact of the move in 2018 and 2019. That freed money, plus other contracts that will be off the books by that point, will allow the team to keep its current young talent as that talent is peaking while opening up flexibility for filling out the rest of the roster.
Even if Martinez does poorly enough over the next two years that he doesn’t exercise the opt out, it’s highly unlikely that this would be a Sandoval situation, in which the team is facing those three extra years being worthless. Martinez would almost surely possess “rebound” capabilities, in which case he could offer surplus value late in the contract after falling short early on. I’m sure Boston and Martinez would be fine in that case too.
So please don’t overlook the obvious. Clearly, Boston expects Martinez to be gone after 2019, and clearly the is desirable. Now the team can almost plan for that eventuality, and that’s a good thing, while Martinez has a better chance now of getting what he really wanted than he seemed to be facing even a few days ago.
We really need a deeper study on the benefits of opt out as it pertains to dollar figures. Otherwise you’d just have comment threads like this where people discuss whether this is good for player or team.
For a site that is based on baseball analytics I find it hard to read each player opt out as simply “Well this is good for the player.” Sure, that’s true, but it’s not the whole truth and doesn’t really look at the situation in total. The fact that teams are willing to give way for opt outs in negotiations clearly suggest they don’t think it’s as much of a downside as fangraphs have in the past few months suggested.
The only thing that might be complicated to understand about player options is how much the inclusion of the player option was worth in guaranteed dollars in the player’s contract. In that respect, it is little different than the value of a NTC in a contract, or some other player benefit that has value and conceivably could be traded for some amount of guaranteed dollars. (The fact that the player option is worth more to the player than the team, because the team and the player are willing to include it in the contract at all in place of some amount of guaranteed dollars is obvious and does not change the analysis. That is the same thing for any negotiated provision in a contract).
Past that, it it always good for the player. The folks noting that well, several years from now, the player could mis-evaluate his market and give up more value in the option than his market worth, is besides the point. That’s just a post hoc argument that doesn’t change the fact that the option is a one-sided benefit for the player after it is included in the contract.
I mean, if the Astros traded Jose Altuve to the Cardinals for Kolten Wong, that’s a terrible deal for the Astros the moment the trade is consummated. If Jose Altuve tears his rotator cuff the week after the trade (and had no preexisting injury) and never plays baseball again, it was still a terrible trade, even if the Astros are actually better off because of happenstance after the fact.
“It’s almost impossible for the Red Sox to come away from this contract with a steal. That upside isn’t there.”
I understand what you are saying about player options limiting the upside of a deal from the team’s prospective, but make no mistake if he produces 8+ WAR at $50 million in the first two years that in and of itself is very good value, but under that scenario JD would also surely opt-out.
Over/Under 24.5 HR @ Home?
I’d take the under. Martinez hits HRs to all fields and center and right-center are very deep at Fenway, with no environmental factor to help, like the high elevation in Phoenix
This is kind of perfect for the Red Sox. They are a good team that didn’t have a good DH/1B. Martinez has been a top 5 hitters in baseball over the last couple years (his bat over the last 4 yrs was on par with guys like Stanton, Harper, Votto,, ect). Of course he isn’t as good as those guys because they play defense and are overall better players, but the ability to add THAT kind of bat without gutting the farm/giving a 200+ million contract to, sounds like a pretty good move given their needs.
I understand why a lot of teams weren’t in on Martinez. He’s essentially DH only long term so no NL teams. Lots of the good AL teams didn’t have a need for him (NYY HOU) or just didn’t have the money (CLE). This was really kind of perfect for the sox. To add arguably a top 5 hitter in baseball, without having too dish out a Stanton level contract.
What kind of production would JD have to have to not opt out at year 2, but then opt out after 3? It would almost certainly be great years 1 & 3, and significant season ending injury in 2, right?
Yup.
Nasty injury killing all or most of season two.
Then Season three becomes a “pillow” that lets him rebuild his value.
He is betting on being able to recover from a catastrophic injury to be worth more than the years four+five.
It’s hard to see how this makes any sense whatsoever … and let’s put aside the $50 million and the optionable albatross back-end.
Baseball isn’t just about WAR — it’s also about the clubhouse. The Red Sox have just jettisoned a possibly perfectly serviceable 4th OF (Bryce Brentz) for Martinez, who is unlikely to do a good job under the Monster and who can’t play CF to save his life and who would only be a replacement for Mookie Betts in RF in case of the utmost dire necessity. Which probably isn’t really a problem, since he’s only good for 120 games a year.
And who doesn’t want to be a DH. And who reportedly got annoyed with the Red Sox during the protracted negotiations. (Clue bat to JD and to Scott Boras — this is not normally a good negotiating tactic.)
It’s all very well to talk about “being on the right end of the W-L curve,” but you don’t have to fix that in February — you can always wait until July. Particularly this year.
I’m sure this signing will inspire Hanley Ramirez and Mitch Moreland to play their little hearts out for the good of the team. Not.
Hanley has 22million reasons to play his heart out.
If he doesn’t, he might not have a MLB contract next year.
Clubhouse chemistry is oversold.o
If Martinez hits they’ll grin and bear it.
If he doesn’t the team will have Bigger Things To Worry About.