(As of Sunday night, there’s a press conference scheduled for Monday, but I wanted to post this anyway. So enjoy.)
There was a bunch of hype when the J.D. Martinez deal was announced on February 19th, and most of Red Sox nation was yelling “2018 World Series Champs!”
I wasn’t on board right away, mostly because of the cat and mouse game Martinez’s agent—the ever so lovely Scott Boras—was playing during the off-season. Once Boras realized no team was going to give Martinez the $200 million he was looking for, the deal with the Sox was born.
And like all new born babies, Martinez had to get a check up from the doctor. Normally the baby will get a clean bill of heath and a cute little hat.
But the physical is what’s holding up the Sox officially announcing Martinez as the newest member of the squad. According to Ian Browne, they’re still working on the contract language because of findings of his physical.
So now it’s the waiting game, and that got me thinking.
Things that could happen before the Red Sox officially announce J. D. Martinez:
- MLB decides on another stupid pace of play rule.
- The weather gets its act together in New England.
- I finally catch up on the episodes of ER in my DVR (there’s about 70).
- I become a morning person.
- “Giancarlo” Stanton starts going by “Mike” again.
- Russell Wilson sees a major league plate appearance.
- Benny’s flow grows back #FlowBros
- I conquer my fear of mascots.
- Jerry Remy returns to the broadcast booth.
This isn’t the first time the Sox have encountered something like this. The first time was with J.D. Drew in 2007 and the second with Mike Napoli in 2013.
If not for Napoli, I would have said this seems to be a thing with anyone named “J.D.” Now I’ll just sit here and twiddle my thumbs until the press conference.
Strikeouts + Sprinkles 
Boston has a terrible track record when it comes to signing free agents to a lot of money, don’t they? I’m almost thankful for it because you guys always sign the players us Blue Jays fans want, but will never get. That goes back to the Carl Crawford days. Oh my God we’ve needed a left fielder forever. And then there was Pablo Sandoval who we were convinced we needed until the Red Sox got him. And then his belt broke in a game in Toronto while he was swinging the bat and we fully realized we had dodged a bullet. Good luck with this J.D.
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Trust me, I’m the first person to tell you that we have horrible luck with free agent 5-year contracts. Crawford turned out to be absolutely useless and was part of a huge fire sale to the Dodgers. And don’t even get me started on Sandoval. Worst signing I’ve seen in a while and a waste of money.
JD Martinez can opt out after two years, so we’ll see how that goes. I haven’t seen a complete five-year contract end well yet. Prior to last year, he averaged around 28 home runs, about 150 hits, and around .300 during his time with the Tigers. Last year his combined numbers (between Tigers and DBacks) were 45 home runs, 131 hits, and a .303 average. Overall, his numbers look good, but he needs to produce at DH, assuming that’s where the Sox are going to put him.
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Those are some really good numbers. I always think hitters are at a big advantage when hitting at Fenway but doesn’t always seem like that’s the case. I think they were last in the AL in home runs last year? That shocked me.
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I wouldn’t doubt it. (I also can’t seem to find any statistics from a brief Google search so I’ll take your word for it.) It’s not really a righty-friendly park for pulling homers because of the Green Monster. Martinez is a righty, so he’ll have to pull the ball up over the Monster or start hitting it oppo to right field.
Here’s his 2017 spray chart: https://www.fangraphs.com/spraycharts.aspx?playerid=6184&position=OF&type=battedball&pid2=6184&ss1=2016&se1=2016&ss2=2017&se2=2017&cht1=hangtime&cht2=battedball&vs1=ALL&vs2=ALL From a glance, it looks like he hit both left and right field, but in either home field last year, there was no 37-foot wall out in left.
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Hmm see I always thought it was easier to hit home runs there because of the Green Monster being so close/tempting in left field. At least, that’s the impression I get when the Blue Jays play there since they always seem to aim for left field.
I could see Martinez taking advantage of Pesky’s Pole.
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I wish I knew more about the home run percentages and spray charts of Fenway, mostly because I should know. Maybe that’ll be my mission for the season haha. To be honest, I don’t care where he hits the home runs; I just want to see him produce and not be another fluke.
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[…] take J.D. Martinez and his five year/$110 million contract any day over Machado or Harper. Martinez has hit over .300 […]
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