JD Martinez Is Reportedly 'Fed Up With The Red Sox’s Inflexibility And Would Rather Sign With Another Club'
Ken Rosenthal just wrote this column with the latest on what’s been going on with JD Martinez and the Red Sox:
The industry-wide assumption remains that free-agent outfielder J.D. Martinez will land in Boston, but the Red Sox cannot be sure.
Martinez, 30, has yet to accept Boston’s reported five-year, $125 million offer. He is telling people in Miami that he is willing to hold out until he gets his price, as first reported by FanRag Sports’ Jon Heyman. He also is telling people that he is fed up with the Red Sox’s inflexibility and would rather sign with another club, sources say.
Perhaps Martinez is simply posturing. It’s difficult to imagine why he would be upset with a team reportedly willing to give him a nine-figure deal. It’s also difficult to imagine him saying no if the Red Sox improved their offer—which the team, sensing an absence of competition, evidently does not feel compelled to do.
The Red Sox, though, must at least consider the possibility that they will not sign Martinez. Dave Dombrowski, the team’s president of baseball operations, told The Athletic on Tuesday he will continue to take a wait-and-see approach, citing the potential for other opportunities to arise due to the slow-developing free-agent market—not simply opportunities with free agents, but also opportunities with trades.
Here’s what I’ve got to say about this — Hey, JD. Get the fuck over yourself, pal. If you haven’t noticed, nobody else wants to sign you. The Red Sox offered you five years, $125 million dollars. That’s the best offer you’ve got, and it’s a pretty generous one at that. Pitchers and catchers report next week. If somebody was going to blow that offer out of the water, they would’ve done it by now.
Need I remind you that it was almost exactly four years ago that you were straight up released by the Houston Astros, and now you’re scoffing at what would be the fifth most lucrative contract in Red Sox history? It pains me to say this, because I know that the Red Sox would be significantly better with you in the middle of that lineup, but I’ve seen this story unfold too many times. A guy who just wants to get paid, comes to Boston because the Red Sox offered him the most money, and then we all sit back and watch the train wreck. If you don’t want to be here, then don’t be here.
The Red Sox have a good team. It’s not a great team. It’s not a World Series team. But for as talented as Martinez is, I’m all set with the Red Sox budging from their current offer and overpaying someone who doesn’t want to be here. Fuck that. The Red Sox should withdraw their offer just out of principle.
I’ve been saying it all along — five years, $125 million is more than fair. The market is what the market is. It’s not Boston’s fault that nobody else is ponying up more for his services and that Scott Boras fed him some bullshit about how he was going to fetch seven years, $210 million. The Red Sox didn’t promise him that. To be fed up with a team for offering you $25 million a year over five years when you’ve only had four good major league seasons is laughable. Fuck outta here.
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Now, if he signs with the Red Sox, it’s going to be awkward as fuck. Fans don’t forget shit like this, and they HATE big-money free agents who don’t deliver. If nobody else ends up making a better offer than the Red Sox’s, then he might wanna consider taking less to sign somewhere else because he’s already got two strikes against him in Boston with both the media, who eats this shit up, and the fans, who don’t put up with this shit. He’s a big-money free agent, and he’s now tipped his hand that he’d rather be somewhere else before ever stepping foot in the Red Sox clubhouse. Strike one. Strike two.
If the Red Sox were to decide to withdraw from the JD Martinez sweepstakes, you wouldn’t hear a complaint from me. Roll the dice with this roster in 2018, make some upgrades midseason if you have to, and save your money for the much better free agent class a year from now. Fine by me.