J.D. Martinez surprised a lot of people with his decision to not opt-out of his contract with the Red Sox on Monday. Officially, Martinez had until midnight to decide, but work broke shortly before 5 p.m.
Martinez has $62.5 million remaining over the next three years, though he can choose to opt out after 2020 and 2021, too.
He'll make $23.75 million in 2020, with that same number serving as the Red Sox charge toward the CBT (competitive balance tax).
Here are five thoughts on the news and the fallout:
1. Martinez (and Scott Boras) made the right call.
For months, I was convinced that Martinez would not opt out. To me, it made no sense to sacrifice that money for the next three years, given how the market has treated 30-something position players the last two years, to say nothing of one who is, his protests to the contrary, effectively a DH.
In recent weeks, I let myself get talked into thinking he was opting out, because so many people around the game -- other talent evaluators, executives -- treated it as a fait accompli.
I still had difficulty thinking that he would improve on those numbers elsewhere. Not in this climate, not when the 30-homer slugger isn't quite as rare, not with half the teams out of the bidding, and not with many teams preferring to spread the DH at-bats around.
Boras usually reads the market pretty well. He did again here.
2. The Red Sox payroll crunch just got tighter.
With Martinez staying, the Sox have about $133 million committed to seven players. Add another half-dozen or so with big jumps for arbitration there's another $60 million. Now, add in players with 1-3 years of service time, factor in player benefits ($15 million) and rounding out the roster and you're easily past the $208 million threshold -- before you begin to account for a single new addition.
Red Sox ownership and upper management keeps stressing that getting under that threshold to reset their tax rate going forward is ... everybody now ... "a goal, not a mandate.'' But it seems fairly obvious the Sox much prefer to be under and will make a concerted effort to get there.
3. Yes, Martinez returning might mean Mookie Betts leaving.
The day after the 2019 season ended, team president and CEO Sam Kennedy was asked if there was a way to retain both Betts and Martinez.
"There's a way,'' conceded Kennedy, "but obviously, it's very difficult.'
We're about to see exactly how difficult. What we know is that, together, the two are scheduled to make approximately $51.5 million in 2020 -- $23.75 for Martinez, with a projection of a $27.7 million salary arbitration figure for Betts. That's almost exactly 25 percent of the $208 figure under which the Sox hope to land for just two players.
That's not exactly an efficient outlay for a team in cost-cutting mode.
It's possible that the option of having Martinez in the lineup for at least another year makes it slightly more palatable for the team to shop Betts. A lineup featuring Rafael Devers, Xander Bogaerts, Andrew Benintendi and Martinez is a pretty formidable offensive foundation and might make moving Betts slightly less onerous.
Then again...
4. It might mean that Martinez himself is traded.
There's nothing to stop the Red Sox from turning around and trading Martinez.
Martinez has a limited no-trade clause that allows him to choose up to three teams to whom he cannot be dealt. Such lists are typically revised and submitted in November.
But there are two roadblocks to a Martinez deal:
- The same market that limited Martinez's options as a prospective free agent also (mostly) apply to his trade value. Martinez has little appeal to National League teams, leaving the other 14 AL teams are potential landing spots. But the Sox aren't going to deal with the Yankees, so that's reduced to 13. And Martinez will likely choose wisely when it comes to identifying his three no-trade teams -- selecting from only AL teams, and only teams for whom he might be a fit. Now we're down to 10 -- approximately half of which (Tampa Bay, Baltimore, Kansas City, Cleveland, Oakland) either can't afford him or have no DH availability. That brings us to five. See where this is heading?
- The return for Martinez in a deal won't be great because of a lack of control. He can opt out of his deal again next year, and the year after that, too. That means that any team trading for him does so knowing that they have only one year of control guaranteed. And as we've seen, teams are reluctant to give up much for rentals -- which is what Martinez represents. Yes, he might not opt-out next year, but a team dealing for him can't be assured of that.