Rumor grade: J.D. Martinez to the Red Sox
Martinez is in Orlando meeting with teams.
J.D. Martinez is in Orlando meeting with teams during Winter Meetings, and there is at least one team that he will definitely be spending some quality time with as he enjoys the Florida sunshine. Or the inside of a Florida hotel suite.
The rumor
That team would be the Red Sox, according to Jon Heyman and others. While he’s not going to Orlando just to say hi to president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski and then turn around and go home, current rumblings have Boston as the one team he will assuredly sit down with during his time at Winter Meetings.
Why it makes sense for Boston
[climbs to mountaintop]
[pulls out bullhorn that was a real pain to get to this mountaintop because these things are way heavier than you’d assume, really]
[takes deep breath that’s much harder than expected because I just climbed a mountain]
DINGERS. THEY NEED DINGERS.
Now that that’s settled, we can look at why a little bit. The Red Sox hit 168 home runs as a team in 2017, with no one hitting more than 25. Martinez hit 45 all by himself, good for third-best in the league. There are other players in Boston’s sights right now but they need power from somewhere, and he’s the top target.
There are a few potential drawbacks, as our friends at Over the Monster analyzed, such as his injury history and his defensive stats, but neither of those should be enough to keep the Red Sox from seriously considering him as their newest DH/Dinger Machine. On top of the whole DINGERS thing, Dombrowski was the person who initially brought Martinez to the Tigers in 2014, and would be the one doing it again now.
Why it makes sense for J.D. Martinez
Mostly because he just came off his best season ever, home run-wise, and he is about to get paid. Scott Boras is his agent, and if he doesn’t turn this into a dinger-centric bidding war over the next few days then hell has officially frozen over. He hit 29 home runs in 62 games with the Diamondbacks after he got traded, and he will get his money.
But he can get money from multiple teams in this market. The Diamondbacks could even pony up and keep him, which has also been rumored, as long as it doesn’t turn into an all out bidding war that they can’t keep up with. However, hitting all of those home runs might be tougher at AT&T Park with the Giants, other teams might not have the cash or wherewithal to pay him $25 million a year or more, and he can be a DH most days for the Sox rather than spending time navigating left field.
Not all of those are reason enough for him to out and out turn down an offer from elsewhere, so he has some options to consider before making his choice.
Rumor grade
A-. The Red Sox are exerting most of their energy and focus on Martinez now. That much is true. This situation has the stench of something that looks likely now, will look unlikely for a few days of the process, and then will happen and it will seem silly that we considered it wouldn’t. One side wants money, the other side wants DINGERS.
Boston is crawling through a desert looking for home runs to quench their thirst, and while there is still a chance he doesn’t end up at Fenway, both sides are talking and the Red Sox look to be trying hard to make this happen. Even if they are tempering their expectations publicly.