Mets Sign J.D. Martinez

Posted by: Patrick Gorman 3/24/2024

On Thursday night in the midst of Kentucky being upset by Oakland, Jon Heyman broke the news that J.D. Martinez was going to be signing with The Mets on a team friendly 1 year $12 Million Dollars. It was reported earlier that night according to Heyman that Mets and Angels both had offers out for Martinez, but didn't like the prices of both offers. I really wanted to know what both offers were, but It did not take long for the offer to be good enough for him to sign with New York.

This is a bat that this team has been searching for since the DH came to the National League in 2022. Gone are the days of strict platoons and not having a real threat behind Pete Alonso. When it comes to the DH position J.D. Martinez is the master of it and this gives me legit optimism that this team can grab that last wildcard spot. Martinez had a down year in 2022 posting a sub .800 OPS with only 16 HRs in Boston. In his walk year everyone thought father time finally caught up to the slugger, but he seemed to prove everyone wrong.

Martinez signed a 1 year $10 Million Dollar deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers for the 2023 season and he delivered. In 113 games Martinez had a Batting Average of .271, slugging 33 HRs, and posting a .893 OPS. Martinez proves that he can still hit even at the wrong side of his 30s. He is going to provide professionalism and leadership to the youth such as Alvarez and Baty when it comes to the art of hitting.

The only real negatives about Martinez's game is that he had nagging back issues in the past couple years and that his strikeout rate percentage jumped up to 31.1%. This jump in strikeouts resulted in him pulling the ball more in LA than he had in his stint in Boston. For the price that David Stearns got him at this is an absolute steal and a game changer for this ball club. This lineup has the potential to do some serious damage this year.