Real Baseball - Free Agency - Tigers Strike First

And we're off.  Last week, the Tigers finalized a 4 year, $50 million deal for Victor Martinez.  On its face both the years and the money seem eminently reasonable.  The wisdom of the contract, however, depends almost entirely on where he's going to play.

A catcher who gives you, in an average season, .300, 21 hrs, 100 rbi, .370 on-base and .840 OPS, is an exceptional value at $12.5m per year.  The switch-hitting V-Mart is second only to a healthy Joe Mauer in terms of ability to hit for average and power (last season he was the only catcher to hit better than .300/20 home runes) and he absolutely kills lefties.  But as a split DH/1B, not so much. And when your best player, MVP runner-up Miguel Cabrera, already occupies first, the value is even more dubious.

From what we've read, it appears that the Tigers intend to split Martinez primarily between DH and catcher.  Apparently, his big numbers aren't enough to convince the Tigers to overlook his defensive deficiencies.  Instead, Alex Avila, who hit .230 last season but has decent power for the position, will remain the #1 catcher and Martinez will catch 2-3 times a week.  So, while they won't get the most value from the contract, Martinez is a good enough hitter that he'll most definitely improve the line-up overall and give Cabrera some additional protection.  Still, given their usage plan and his age (32) we still think they might have been better off filling a position of need with a guy like Jayson Werth.  Finally, for the tigers, we think they'll love the deal the first two years and hate it the last two as Martinez continues to age "naturally."

Of course, when a team gains a player another must lose one and that team is the Boston Red Sox.  We posited before the season that the Sox would re-sign Martinez and let Adrian Beltre walk.  With Martinez hitting the bricks, you have to figure the pressure to keep Beltre increases.  We still think he's gone.  As in the past,  the Sox are committed to not overpaying players and in a market with few hitters who are both consistent and not old, Beltre will be overpaid by someone.  We've read reports that have the Oakland A's offering something in the area of 5 for $64m.  Consider that overpaying.  If that's the case, look for the Sox to focus on picking up an OF (Crawford or Werth or trading for Justin Upton) and continuing their pursuit of Adrian Gonzalez.  We can't see how they'd let Martinez walking or signing Beltre get in the way of those pursuits. 
As for the catching position, as we said above it's virtually impossible to replicate the production they're losing.  They'll probably go into the season by giving Jarrod Salatalamacchia his last shot at becoming an everyday catcher.  Salty, another switch-hitter, is a former big-time prospect (he was one of the centerpieces of the deal that brought Mark Texeria to the Braves from the Rangers), who at his best, he projects to be a hitter like, coincidentally, Victor Martinez.  In big league career, however, he's battled both injuries and an Knoblauchian inability to throw the ball back to the pitcher.  Good luck with that one Sox fans.
 
The final piece to the puzzle is the Red Sox acquisition of the Tigers' first round pick (Martinezi s a Type-A free-agent meaning that the team he leaves gets the acquiring teams 1st rounder and a sandwich pick) which gives them the flexibility to give their first rounder away if they sign someone like Crawford or simply continue their pattern of paying above-slot and nabbing two high-quality young players.  MLB might be the only sport where, because of draft pick compensation, that incentivizes teams to let their best players walk away.