Dodgers to sign veteran slugger J.D. Martinez

The Dodgers have agreed to a one-year contract with J.D. Martinez, FanSided’s Robert Murray reports (Twitter link), pending a physical.  The New York Post’s Jon Heyman reports that Martinez will receive $10MM.  Martinez is represented by the Boras Corporation.

There hasn’t been much public buzz about Martinez’s trip through free agency, as just earlier today, another Heyman report about the Red Sox possibly having interest in re-signing the veteran slugger marked the first team linked to Martinez since he hit the open market.  While Martinez didn’t have many known suitors, the Dodgers were operating quietly, as ESPN’s Jeff Passan tweets that L.A. “targeted Martinez early in free agency.”  According to The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya, the Dodgers also had interest in Martinez prior to last summer’s trade deadline.

Martinez will now end up in Los Angeles after all, and be reunited with a few familiar faces.  Former Red Sox teammate Mookie Betts is now a fixture at Dodger Stadium, of course, and Martinez has a long history with Dodgers hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc.  It was Martinez’s work with Van Scoyoc in the 2013-14 offseason that helped get his career on track and turned Martinez into one of baseball’s better hitters of the last decade.

Since those first fateful sessions with Van Scoyoc and Craig Wallenbrock, Martinez has hit .295/.362/.547 with 258 homers over 4916 plate appearances with the Tigers, Diamondbacks, and Red Sox.  That production led to five All-Star appearances, three Silver Slugger Awards, a key role on Boston’s 2018 World Series championship team, and one big free agent payday in the form of Martinez’s five-year, $110MM contract with the Red Sox in the 2017-18 offseason.

The 2020 season was something of an outlier for Martinez, as he struggled badly in the shortened season and was open about how the COVID-19 dugout protocols interrupted his usual routine.  With that year perhaps simply a write-off due to unusual circumstances, 2022 marked the first sign of decline in Martinez’s production, even if his 119 wRC+ over 596 PA was still solidly above the league average.  Martinez still hit .274/.341/.448, but his homer total (16), Isolated Power figure (.174) and slugging percentage were all his lowest in a regulation-sized season since 2013.  In addition, Martinez’s hard-hit percentage dropped off sharply from his career norms, even if his 41.7% total was still in the 60th percentile of all batters.

On paper, a move from Fenway Park to Dodger Stadium isn’t ideal for a player looking to regain his power stroke.  However, the change of scenery and a reunion with Van Scoyoc makes Martinez into a very interesting bounce-back candidate for 2023.  Even if he “only” has another season in the neighborhood of 119 wRC+, the Dodgers will happily take that kind of offensive upgrade within a lineup that has already lost Trea Turner and Cody Bellinger to free agency.

2022 marked the first season that Martinez played exclusively as a designated hitter, and that will surely be his primary role in Los Angeles even if he does pick up the glove for an occasional appearance as a corner outfielder.  Martinez doesn’t bring the defensive versatility that the Dodgers usually prefer, but the club has enough other versatile players that the overall roster flexibility won’t be much hurt by Martinez getting the bulk of DH at-bats. Max Muncy will now mostly toggle between second and third base, with Chris Taylor also capable of playing either position and prospect Miguel Vargas in line for more playing time at third base.  Gavin Lux, meanwhile, is slated to move from second base to replace Turner as the everyday shortstop.

The addition of Martinez creates an obvious question about whether or not free agent Justin Turner has played his last game in Dodger blue.  Heyman tweets that the Dodgers still have interest in Turner, who has also drawn interest from such teams as the Marlins and Diamondbacks this winter.  If Turner was re-signed, L.A. could slot Turner in at third base, moving Muncy to second base and keeping Taylor primarily as an outfielder.  Vargas would be the odd man out in this scenario, though the Dodgers may prefer to either bring him along slowly or rely on more experienced players as the club chases another World Series ring.

Of course, there has also been a sense that the Dodgers are willing to lean more heavily than usual on Vargas and other up-and-comers in 2023, given how the team might be looking to duck under the $233MM Competitive Balance Tax threshold.  Martinez’s $10MM salary bumps the Dodgers’ tax number to roughly $210.3MM, as per Roster Resource.  It still leaves L.A. with more room to spend, but Trevor Bauer’s appeal of his two-year suspension looms large, as an arbiter is expected to rule on the appeal at some point before the end of January.  If the Dodgers have to end up paying some or all of the two years’ worth of salary wiped out by Bauer’s suspension, it could put them near or over the CBT line yet again.

To this end, Martinez’s contract is relatively inexpensive enough that it isn’t necessarily a hint in either direction about how the Dodgers might feel the arbiter will rule.  With that appeal still an X-factor for the remainder of the Dodgers’ winter business, they might’ve felt the investment in Martinez was still worth making, given his appeal and comeback potential.

The one-year length is also somewhat notable, as MLBTR projected Martinez for a two-year, $30MM pact.  It could be that Martinez accepted the shorter deal in order to play for a contender and to reunite with Betts and Van Scoyoc, or he and agent Scott Boras could view this as something of a pillow contract.  If and when Martinez does rebound from his 2022 season, it would put Martinez in line for a larger multi-year pact next winter, even as he’s entering his age-36 season.  The Dodgers have yet to ink a player to a multi-year deal this winter, as Martinez, Noah Syndergaard, Shelby Miller, and the re-signed Clayton Kershaw are only signed through the 2023 campaign.