Victor Martinez's four-year, $50MM contract with the Tigers was finalized today. Now that the offseason's first major free agent has left the market, there is no shortage of commentary about how this move impacts Martinez's former club in Boston. A sampling…
- "The Tigers are paying Martinez with the expectation that he’ll be able to replicate the career of [Jorge] Posada," writes The Providence Journal's Brian MacPherson, while the Red Sox saw Martinez as another Mike Lieberthal.
- CSNNE.com's Sean McAdam points out that if Boston had to lose Martinez, Detroit was the best possible team to lose him to since the Tigers have the highest unprotected pick (19th overall) in the 2011 amateur draft. WEEI.com's Alex Speier, however, points out that Boston's compensatory pick will fall into the second round if the Tigers sign a higher-ranked free agent than Martinez — namely, Carl Crawford or Jayson Werth.
- In a separate story from Speier, multiple Red Sox sources say they doubt Martinez will remain a viable catcher for more than two seasons. As Speier points out, handing lots of responsibility to Jarrod Saltalamacchia is risky, but signing Martinez long-term would have been risky, too. Speier says "the decision bore striking parallels" to when Johnny Damon signed with New York after the 2005 season.
- Writing for WEEI.com, former Boston utilityman Lou Merloni thinks the Red Sox made a mistake by not re-signing Martinez.
- Tony Massarotti of the Boston Globe thinks Theo Epstein may be putting too much emphasis on stockpiling draft picks.
MLBTR's Ben Nicholson-Smith contributed to this post
Since Theo has taken over, the Sox are tied with the most 1st-2nd (that includes sandwich) round picks. The only years they didn’t make effort for draft picks was 2004 and 2007…what happened those years?
Yeah you would think that a team that has money like Boston would rather have a good major league baseball player than a great high school baseball player.
People fall too in love with prospects. I doubt any prospect the Red Sox drafted in the past 3 years has VMart potential.
“Tony Massarotti of the Boston Globe thinks Theo Epstein may be putting too much emphasis on stockpiling draft picks.”
This, so much. I take for years of VMart over a prospect that might not make it to the bigs in 3-5 years. Theo just keeps on pushing Boston back and back hoping that they fire on all cylinders one season all the way to the WS. Boston is ready now, don’t screw it up.
I’m beginning to think the AL East is a race between NY and Toronto this year. Seriously, Toronto’s window of opportunity suddenly arrived a year earlier than expected with Theo’s move.
As much as I’d love to think that, I don’t think you should be too down. Boston still has a great team that was riddled with injuries last year. If they stay healthy, they are easily contenders even without Martinez IMO. And if Salta(whatever his name is) doesn’t work out, they could always pick up a catcher during the season.
Boston has a great rotation and I fully expect Beckett to return to his ace form and it’s possible Lackey could rebound as well. Considering how well Buchholz and Lester pitched, if those guys return to form, that’s one scary rotation. Healthy Pedroia, Ellsbury, Cameron will help the team a lot. I believe Youkalis was injured as well… so you can see where the season went wrong, I wouldn’t be too down on it.
However, if you guys lose Beltre, it becomes a lot more difficult unless you guys manage to get A-Gon and move Youkalis to 3rd.
Beckett has never really been ace…
Beckett has never really been ace…
I hardly think that not signing Victor has doomed the Sox to the AL East basement for next year, there are still players available who are more valuable than him and could easily replace his production. Don’t forget that we stayed in the race last year for almost 2 months with Cash/Veritek as our catchers while he was injured (along with about 1/3 of the rest of the team).
Not that this will likely help the Sox this year but they picked up Ibarra who is supposed to be really good and they have a few other catching prospects with good potential. If they can get one of Werth/Crawford and resign Beltre (or less likely trade for A-Gonz/Fielder) I wouldn’t mind seeing one or two of those guys in the minors get a shot to see if they can stick in the majors.
Ok now the facts…here is the free agent lost, and who they drafted with the picks
Orlando Cabrera- Jacoby Ellsbury and Jed Lowrie
Pedro Martinez- Clay Buchholz
Johnny Damon- Daniel Bard
Alex Gonzalez- Nick Hagadone
Billy Wagner- Kolbrin Vitek & Anthony Ranaudo
Jason Bay- Bryce Brentz & Brandon Workman
Nearly every free agent that has left has returned players more valuable through the draft, which is because the Red Sox use their big market strength to get “high talent tough signs”. There are many things to criticize the Red Sox for, but this is a dumb argument. How does he make a statement like “are the draft picks really what produce the championships”? How soon Tony forgets Victor Martinez was aquired for a draft pick compensation guy (Hagadone) and a second round pick (Masterson). If anything, the Red Sox drafting is the only thing keeping them as contenders because they’ve been average at best on the FA market.
I wish I could like this ten more times.
Alex Gonzalez- Nick Hagadone
Billy Wagner- Kolbrin Vitek & Anthony Ranaudo
Jason Bay- Bryce Brentz & Brandon Workman None of these guys have done anything, maybe youll an arguement when they prove something. O and Damon is much more valuable than Bard.
not to nitpick, but Alex Gonzalez had a great year
Give the kids a chance. They’re not even shaving yet.
Bard has top notch closer written all over him; Damon was worthless last year. Ellsbury is a much more valuable than Cabrera.
The guy just basically blew up Massarotti in one well-researched post. Deal with it.
Damon has played five years since leaving the red sox’s not one, and hes been much more valuable in those years then Bard. Give the kids a chance i am but to say their worth the player they gave up already is just stupid. Also there’s a big differance between letting guys like orlando cabberra and billy wagner and letting damon and vmart leave. They already had players to replace Cabbera and especially wagner, theyy have no one that can replace vmart.
When you let a veteran walk for a draft pick you never expect it’s going to look good immediately. But you’re over-simplifying it. Some things to consider:
1. You have Bard for 6 years, for very cheap.
2. Instead of paying Damon $15M/yr, you’ve been able to spend that money elsewhere (wasn’t Beckett signed around the same time Damon left)?
So you can’t just look at it as Damon-for-Bard. You need to look at it as Damon for Bard-plus-payroll-flexibility.
With the exception of Mike Cameron, the Sox seem to have done very well to avoid paying top-dollar for a player’s declining years lately.
Your assuming they wouldnt simply of spent the sam amount of money which is a bad assumption to make considering they had a low payroll those years, while this year their finally back up. 13 a million a year is what they could had him for.
Your assuming they wouldnt simply of spent the sam amount of money which is a bad assumption to make considering they had a low payroll those years, while this year their finally back up. 13 a million a year is what they could had him for.
Bard for very cheap? Right now, yes. If he turns in to your closer like you say then he isn’t cheap. Look at Papelbon is he cheap? They want to trade his sixth year he is so expensive.
When you let a veteran walk for a draft pick you never expect it’s going to look good immediately. But you’re over-simplifying it. Some things to consider:
1. You have Bard for 6 years, for very cheap.
2. Instead of paying Damon $15M/yr, you’ve been able to spend that money elsewhere (wasn’t Beckett signed around the same time Damon left)?
So you can’t just look at it as Damon-for-Bard. You need to look at it as Damon for Bard-plus-payroll-flexibility.
With the exception of Mike Cameron, the Sox seem to have done very well to avoid paying top-dollar for a player’s declining years lately.
Damon has played five years since leaving the red sox’s not one, and hes been much more valuable in those years then Bard. Give the kids a chance i am but to say their worth the player they gave up already is just stupid. Also there’s a big differance between letting guys like orlando cabberra and billy wagner and letting damon and vmart leave. They already had players to replace Cabbera and especially wagner, theyy have no one that can replace vmart.
As much as I would like that to happen, Toronto probably won’t be a force to be reckoned with until atleast next year…but they certainly make the AL East interesting this season
The comparison with Posada is a good one. Posada has a better arm than Martinez. Victor runs better than Jorge. If Martinez can hit like Posada for his career, that will be a great career and Detroit will have gotten a bargain from their signing.
Nice to see the sunshine/beach ball tossing Red Sox fans out in force. So glad everyone knows how to build a good team up with a strong minor league system an not on overpaid and old veteran players when won’t even be able to play certain positions, or in VMart’s case, catcher before his highly overpaid contact’s case before it is even half way over.
Maybe some should just watch the box scores and come back when Boston is in 1st place again.
The Red Sox farm isn’t even that good now. Never mind the mediocre years many of their prospects had, their good prospects are years and years away from even sniffing the majors. The bottom half of their farm is excellent, AAA and AA… quite the opposite.
Albert Pujols is worse than Kevin Cash. See, anyone can make stuff up and write a comment. Now next time try and make sense.
kevin cash does have the superior name…
If albert pujols’ last name was cash, Albert Cash.. would have hit over .400 this year with 62 homeruns
Kalish, Anderson, Doubront, Kelly, Iglesias, Lavarnway, Rizzo, Exposito, Lin, Spears, Navarro, Reddick. All players in AA or AAA last year.
Great plan for the NL west. If you play in the AL east though it won’t really work. The Rays of the past few years were a bit of a anomaly I think and the result of a decade of finishing dead last. And now they will likely begin to descend back in that direction after 3 good years. The Red Sox should try that for a few years if they really want to build up the system.
As I said in an earlier post:
The Sox should re-sign Tek to a 1 year deal and let him catch against lefties. Salty, Tek, a 1st round pick, and 40+ million dollars > Martinez.
Also, Mazz and Merloni are a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic.
Plus a sandwich pick. Mazz is retarded and Merloni is irrelevant.
“multiple Red Sox sources say they doubt Martinez will remain a viable catcher for more than two seasons.”
Ah, a good old fashioned Boston smear campaign! Now Peter Gammons will go on TV and talk about how terrible of a person Victor Martinez is and tell everybody he touches kids or something.
Worst case, the Red Sox don’t have a catcher in 2011.
That’s bad, but misery loves company. There are less than eight catchers out there, total. Mauer, Posey, McCann, the three Molinas, and after that everyone is a AAA player getting service time toward an unearned pension.
Martinez has flaws and everyone has cited them. He’s better than he appears precisely because there are no catchers to be had,anywhere. The Tigers obviously couldn’t stomach Gerald Laird any longer, but about twenty teams send the functional equivalent of Gerald Laird up to the plate to make four outs a game, day in day out.
I didn’t mention Posada because he may no longer be a legit catcher, but he certainly used to be, and he gave the Yanks a big advantage over their competition.
Tigers aren’t even using him as a everyday catcher.
The second you see Tony Massarotti, you should know it’s gonna be a painful article. I listen to him on 98.5, and all he’s been saying the past 2 days is “Victor Martinez is a proven middle of the order bat. He has stellar offensive numbers, and I don’t care about OBP or OPS I care about guys that have high BA and can hit the ball in the gap. The only way this team is going to become noticable this year is if they go out and piss in the Derek Jeter pool or trade for Hanley Ramirez. Adrian Gonzalez won’t do it, Cliff Lee won’t do it, Carl Crawford won’t do it, and Jayson Werth won’t do it. I’m telling you John Henry cares more about his soccer team than he does the Red Sox.”
Try listening to that every couple of minutes. The second you mention Red Sox that is what you get from Mazz. If I was allowed to talk on the phone while driving I’d call in and tell him to shut the f*ck up cuz he’s an annoying piss pot.
The Sports Hub and WEEI are literally unlistenable when it comes to the Red Sox. I wish Alex Spier and Rob Bradford would do a show every day.
I…see no offensive comparisons between Martinez and Lieberthal that make one bit of sense aside from both being good at putting the ball in play. Lieberthal broke 20 home runs twice and one time was exactly that and never broke 100 rbi’s while Martinez has shown he can do it consistently for six years barring an injury while having a considerably better eye.
The Bosox made a huge mistake here in my opinion, they’ve relied on catching anchoring their team for too long to suddenly not have a reliable catcher or Salty who has trouble getting balls to second base nonetheless throwing out runners. Worst case, VMart goes to DH or 1st and rakes the rest of his career. Great Detroit pickup.
Uhh Saltalamacchia has been throwing the ball fine. He’s a better defensive catcher than Martinez was. Obviously he isn’t the hitter, but the Red Sox had the best offense in baseball before their historic amount of injuries. I still don’t even think Saltalamacchia will be the full time catcher…the good thing about Opening Day is it isn’t played on Thanksgiving. How about we wait and see what happens?
the question is were to put martinez in the line-up. this leads to another question,were to put brennan boesch in the line-up and can he find his bat???. Iwould have verlander Scherzer an porcello pitch to him all winter long. Can Guillen play without getting hurt (hamstring)??? Mags would be a better DH than Carlos! The tigers line-up looks same as last year except(martinez). Don:t stop now Mr Illitch,The tigers need a big bat(Dunn,Dye,Thome,Bay,Konerko)or a Big Pitch to go with Verlander.Look hard at your opponets,Phillies,Cardinals,Twins,the white,red socks.The giants shut down tex by pitching.
Catcher X:
2009 – .273/.380/.508/.888, 151 at bats
2010 – .289/.392/.479/.871, 144 at bats
I’d like to see this guy get 330 at bats in a Boston platoon.
Does Catcher X have a name?
David Ross of the Braves
I really don’t want the Sox committing several million on any of the catchers still available. No one is going to give up their starter…this is the only option I can think of, well besides Varitek
I think VMart at age 32 should be a safe bet to provide a .280-.300 bat avg, .350-.380 obp and 18-25 hrs. He can play a passable at worst catcher, a slightly below avg to average 1B and of course DH. With the Sox having openings at C and 1B/3B (because of Youks versatility) in 2011 and DH in 2012 I thought VMart was a safe pick up for the Sox @ 4/$50 mil. Certainly he struggles to throw out runners. Certainly he isn’t your prototypical power hitting DH who will deliver 30+ hrs. What he is, is a consistant player that gives you a little of everything from a few different spots. What was the harm in letting him C in 2011 and move to DH in 2012? He’s a better overall hitter in avg, obp and doesn’t have a huge disparity in lefty/righty splits that Ortiz has and makes the same that Ortiz will in 2011. It’s also not a huge leap to say that maybe his offensive game might see a 10-15% hike as a DH because his body won’t be as worn down and he’ll be able to play closer to 162 games as a DH than he would as a C where he tops off around 120-130.
One little thing being overlooked is DH will probably belong to Youk after the 2011 season. Almost everyone is expecting Boston to sign AGone anyway and Youk to play 3B if he does not DH. A hard sell on Youk’s part for a gifted defensive 1B, but quite necessary to get the guy they have been waiting on for years.
That was the major part of not wanting to tie up the DH spot with the much lighter hitting Martinez IMO.
Good point. Sox fans better hope that Agonz/Boston doesn’t turn into Lebron/NY Knicks where they have their eyes set on obtaining someone for years and then it doesn’t happen.
Right on there. AGone is going to be the 1st priority an Pujols #2 if he does not sign an extension with St. Louis followed by Fielder 3rd. Any of those are a serious upgrade with the bat as a DH over Martinez and AGone with the glove. Youk can out field the trio with the glove. It just not make sense to give the guy (Vmart) the cash and block the DH spot with 3 superior people almost certainly becoming available next year.
They still seem to be playing a waiting game somewhat on beltre, which is no big deal, but on Boston’s terms also of not going to give him a mega payday, knowing they can find a short term solution until next year, maybe LaRoche, maybe Lowrie even.
Priority is to keep that option open for 2012 when there is almost certainly no team with an open spot going to stop them from the prize that has the funds, then you never know, but there are other options as mentioned, like choices B and C. A once every 10 years FA crop in 2012.
I always assumed that V-Mart was going to end up in Detroit and I was always OK with a Salty/Tek combo next year if that happened. But I was, like Merloni, confused by the fact that the Sox apparently WERE willing to go 4 years and that it actually came down to an issue of dollars. If you bite the bullet and decide to offer him 4 years..how does 8 million really change things? It’s still a pretty reasonable contract IMO.
I like how all of the boston experts are trying to make Detroit look as dumb as possible, pointing out that a 32 year old mediocre catcher isn’t going to be viable in 2 years. News Flash: DUH!The Tigers didn’t get Vmart to be their catcher in 2 years, they got him because he is a proven .300 hitter and they desperately needed a veteran RBI guy to bat behind Cabrera. They have openings at C and DH and they seem intent on Avila being their future at Catcher. I can see Vamrt and Avila splitting time 50/50 this year behind the plate. Next year, Guillen will be gone so Vmart can shift more to DH, and this will allow Avila to be eased into full time catching duties. If they cant land a solid OF player on a multi year deal (Crawford, Werth) I can see them bringing back Ordonez on a 2 year deal with an option for a third year. Ordonez can play RF now with Raburn and or Boesch. If that happens, 2011 will be a 3 way rotation at DH between Guillen, Martinez, and Ordonez. In 2012, its split 50/50 with Ordonez and Martinez. In 2013, new guys should be ready or be acquired to take over. Cabrera should be able to hold up at 1B. He’s not the best there and 2010 was a big step back in his adjustment to 1B but he was showing good progress in 2009. He should hold up until 2013 at least. Bottom line, this is a good move for the tigers, overpaid by about 2 million a season, but they needed this guy now. As a Tigers fan, I like it.
I look at like this 50 Million for a poor defensive catcher 300 /25 hr at his best.
you take the same Money and go after Crawford/ Werth that looking for 6 yrs/90
who would you rather have Martinez or Werth?
Umm…Martinez, in a heartbeat. Have you seen Werth’s home/away splits? He was largely a product of that offence/park. Not to mention switching to the AL would knock his numbers down even more than his road splits indicate. I’ll take the switch-hitting part-time catcher, thanks.
Any way you slice it the loss of Martinez and Beltre are going to hurt the Sox. Their aren’t any free agents out their to upgrade the lineup. Also Martinez could have transitioned to DH. They wanted Martinez or they wouldn’t have offered him what they did.
I don’t really see that they have to “upgrade” their lineup, they had one of the best offenses in baseball last year without full years from Ellsbury, Pedroia, Youkilis, and yes even V-Mart. When you get Ells, Pedey, and Youk back that alone will better the offense, add to that the possible addition of Werth or Crawford and the offense should be equal to last year at worst.
Even if you assume that they would let Beltre walk and replace him with Lowrie (which I highly doubt), Ells back in the outfield instead of the disaster of an outfield defense we had last year plus the presumably better pitching they should have more than enough offense.
“Any way you slice it the loss of Martinez and Beltre are going to hurt the Sox”
I keep hearing this over and over and over. Just like last year when I heard that “any way you slice it, the loss of Bay is going to devastate the Red Sox offense,” yet the 2010 Sox still had the second best offense in the game.
The more definitive answer is probably:
“Any way you slice it, Theo Epstein is better at putting together a baseball team than anyone who posts on MLBTR and probably knows what he’s doing.”
Only problem is that Theo may have underestimated the market for VMart and may not be able to resign Beltre. It isn’t so much as his will to do this or that but much more a situation where things aren’t going his way and, at least up to this point, he’s been more reactionary than he’s been proactive. Signing CC or Werth of course can change that but let’s not at act that this winter is off to a good start. If he doesn’t bring Betrle back then that’s a lot of offense to replace and in the back of your ming you have to worry what you’ll get from Ortiz next year.
“Only problem is that Theo may have underestimated the market for VMart”
I’m not so sure his valuing of the market bares any relevance. Epstein, historically, sets a price on a player and will not go above that price. I’m pretty sure, based off of quotes he’s made for the past few weeks, that he sincerely did not expect to retain Martinez.
“Signing CC or Werth of course can change that but let’s not at act that this winter is off to a good start. If he doesn’t bring Betrle back then that’s a lot of offense to replace and in the back of your ming you have to worry what you’ll get from Ortiz next year.”
I think you missed my point. My point was that, at this time in 2009, people were saying almost word for word the exact same things. “Theo hasn’t made any splashes” “where’s the offense going to come from” “he’s reacting rather than going out and getting things done. Seriously, the archive is there, go through it and you’ll see the exact same things and I know you’re smart enough to be able to acknowledge that, despite all of last year’s second guessing of Epstein, the Sox still managed to win 89 games in the toughest division in baseball with Pedroia on the DL for half the season, Youk for a third, Martinez for a month and Ellsbury missing the whole season. The Sox, with a team that people were second guessing from day one, were right in the mix until the last few weeks of the season with a lineup of AAAA filler.
My basic point is, second guessing Epstein usually results in the questioning party looking pretty foolish in the end. I’m fully confident he’ll figure something out to put a winning product on the field. Since he came on board, the Sox have missed the playoffs all of twice, and both years had massive amounts of freak injuries. The guy can build a playoff quality roster without having to bend to the whims of the market.
If you think that Salty and Lowrie give you a better team than Martinez and Beltre than fine, and Bay was better than last years LF.
If you think that Salty and Lowrie give you a better team than Martinez and Beltre than fine, and Bay was better than last years LF.
Sometimes you don’t know what you have until you lose it.
That’s why his team makes the playoffs every year. Theo won the World Series and not Manny and Papi and company. How many has he won since Manny left.
That’s why his team makes the playoffs every year. Theo won the World Series and not Manny and Papi and company. How many has he won since Manny left.
After losing V-Mart I think it’s a reasonably safe bet to say that Boston will either:A) Sign Beltre and/or Werth orB) Trade for a A.Gonz, Upton or Fielder and/or sign Werth
Im a huge tiger fan and am so happy they got him
The tigers are not done Jrock, they are still in persue of a big bat an/or big pitch. I got the word from Little Ceasars my self.