Detroit Tigers: Can Victor Martinez contribute in 2018?
Designated Hitter Victor Martinez will soon be entering the final season of a four-year deal with the Detroit Tigers. Many will be interested to see if he has anything left in the tank.
After the conclusion of the 2014 season, the Detroit Tigers re-signed Victor Martinez to a four-year, $68 million deal. Given Martinez’s injury history and his age at the time (35), the transaction seemed risky. That said, he was also coming off of perhaps the best season of his career, hitting .335/.409/.565 (172 OPS+) with 32 home runs and 103 RBI over 641 plate appearances. He finished second in the AL MVP voting that year.
Three years later, the deal looks like it indeed might have been a mistake for the Detroit Tigers. Before the beginning of the 2015 campaign, Martinez suffered another offseason knee injury and went on to hit only .245/.301/.366 (84 OPS+) with 11 home runs and 64 RBI. In 2016, he bounced back to hit .289/.351/.476 (121 OPS+) with 27 homers and 86 RBI, but stumbled to a batting line of .255/.324/.372 (84 OPS+) with 10 home runs and 47 RBI last season.
Since the beginning of 2015, Martinez has been worth -2.3 fWAR, the second-worst mark in baseball over that time frame. For comparison’s sake, Nelson Cruz, who signed a four-year, $58 million deal with the Seattle Mariners the same offseason, has been worth 12.8 fWAR since then.
Last June, a scary moment happened when Martinez was hospitalized and spent time on the sidelines with an irregular heartbeat. He returned to bat .247/.307/.368 with five homers between June 28 through August 26 before being sidelined with the condition once again and undergoing a season-ending procedure. Over the offseason, there was some question as to whether Martinez would be medically cleared to play in 2018, or if the Tigers might just release him due to declining performance and eat the $18 million he is still owed.
Looks like he’s coming back
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In November, Martinez was activated from the 60-day DL. According to Evan Woodbery of MLive, it appears likely that the Detroit Tigers will, in fact, begin the 2018 season with Martinez on their 25-man roster.
For what it’s worth, Martinez is still very good at putting the bat on the ball. Last season, he posted a K rate of just 14.5 percent. While it wasn’t the 6.6 percent K rate he had during his MVP-caliber season of 2014, it was still good enough to rank 39th among players who had accumulated at least 400 plate appearances.
Martinez also had a very solid 23.6 line-drive percentage and a 39.9 hard-hit ball percentage last season. It is interesting to note that in 2014, he had a 21.3 line-drive percentage and a 39.4 hard-hit ball percentage. With a little luck, assuming Martinez is healthy next season, it is possible that he might be able to find a few more holes and gaps once again.
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It is also worth noting that the Detroit Tigers are expected to lose quite a few games this coming season, so it wouldn’t be surprising if they become sellers once again at the trade deadline. As Woodbery also points out, perhaps it is even possible that Martinez could have a substantial enough first half to attract a certain amount of trade interest this summer.