FORT MYERS, Fla. -- J.D. Martinez has had three opportunities to opt out his five-year deal with the Red Sox. Each time, he passed on the chance, choosing to remain with the Sox.
So perhaps it shouldn't be much of a surprise that Martinez, whose contract expires after the 2022 season, has expressed a desire to remain with the Sox past this year.
"I've loved it here the whole time. I would love to finish my career here,'' said Martinez. "I've expressed my feelings toward the front office, I've told them. I've told Chaim (Bloom), I've told Alex (Cora). I love the group here, I love the personnel, the coaching staff. I think it's a first-class organization. I've been part of good organizations, but this one takes the cake. It's fun to be here.''
Spring training is often a time when teams look to get extensions done with players entering their walk years, but beyond having communicated a willingness to stay with the Sox, he'll wait to hear from them.
"My mindset is, I'm going to be a free agent,'' he said. "Would we welcome it? Yeah, I've always welcomed (an offer). My door's always been open, phone's always been open. But I think once the season starts, I'm going to be locked in. But that's a (agent) Scott (Boras) question. That's why I pay him. I'm focused on playing baseball.''
No matter where he plays next year, Martinez knows he'll have the DH role available to him with MLB having adapted it for the National League, too, as part of the recent CBA agreement.
"I'm excited about it,'' said Martinez. "I like it. I think it's good for baseball, all the way around. Obviously, I'm biased. But I've been saying it for a while. I think now it's going to level the playing field for pitchers, hitters...everyone. Now you'll be able to just judge a pitcher or judge a hitter strictly off their numbers and not the league they're playing in, which I think is good for baseball. Plus, it's going to give the game more offense. You're not going to have that dead spot in the game (when the pitcher hits).''
Martinez had to make the call on whether to opt out for 2022 in November, long before it became official that the DH was coming to the National League. But even had he known then, he said, he would have remained with the Sox.
"I think I made the right decision personally,'' he said. "I think this team has a chance to win again and that's what I want to do -- I want to win. I'm starting to go toward the end of my career and trying to win is the most fun. IT kind of aligned -- the situation here, the uncertainty about what was going on. I felt like it was an easy decision.''
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The 2021 season was full of highs and lows for Matt Barnes -- with no in-between.
There was a strong first half, getting named to his first All-Star team and a two-year contract extension.
But there was also a disastrous second half, so bad that he was not initially part of the Division Series playoff roster.
But Barnes feels he's poised to repeat the peaks he enjoyed without any of the valleys.
"It was tough, I'm not going to lie to you,'' Barnes said. "To go from the level I was at in the first half to not even making the postseason roster. But you don't get to improve unless you experience tough times. Nobody improves by being great all the time. You don't learn anything that way. So while it wasn't an incredibly unfortunate situation, you learn from it and move on. We're in a new year now, so I continue to put that behind me.
"What happened in August and September last year has absolutely no (impact) on what's going to happen in April. They're seven months apart. You sit down and you don't play catch for a month and a half, you don't face hitters or get off the mound for three months after that. Sometimes, that's the best solution. You kind of evaluate, think about it and then just sitting down, the body just kind of naturally corrects and get you back into the good habits that you naturally have.''
Barnes is better mentally prepared for this season, having experienced both the highs and lows of being the full-time closer.
"There's a sense of responsibility that I took on that I didn't have to have before,'' he said, "whether it was Koji (Uehara) or Craig (Kimbrel) or even (Brandon) Workman in '19 -- the sense that, when all else fails, I can't and I have to be the stopper at the back end. The performance (of being a closer) wasn't much different than the seventh or the eight (innings). But it was the added sense of responsibility, knowing that you are the backstop.''
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Chaim Bloom said in December, after the Red Sox had dealt away Hunter Renfroe, that the team could use a righthanded bat. Several months later, that's still the case, but Bloom isn't wedded to having that bat play a certain position.
"I think the nice thing about the way our roster sits right now is that we're in a position to be able to accommodate lots of different talented players,'' he said. "Obviously, there are some positions where we're pretty well set and those are spoken for. But we can accommodate the talent if it makes sense.''
But Bloom went on to say that the Sox wouldn't rule out a lefty bat (Kyle Schwarber?) if it made sense.
"You look at the right side of our infield (with Rafael Devers and Xander Bogaerts), the guys that are here now are both righthanded hitters,'' Bloom said, "and we can complement that. I don't want to limit our search (to righthanded hitters). But clearly, after the (Renfroe) deal, it does make (getting a righty replacement) more of a thing.''