LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - OCTOBER 09: J.D. Martinez #28 of the Los Angeles Dodgers celebrates his ... [+]
The Mets’ winter was highlighted by the acquisition of one of the top 10 offensive players of the last decade. Of course, you’d never know it by how long it took them to sign J.D. Martinez, or by how the news of his agreement was dumped right into the most chaotic evening of the sporting calendar.
Details of Martinez signing a one-year, $12 million deal (with $7.5 million deferred beginning in 2034) trickled out last Thursday — the third night of spring and right in the middle of the prime-time window of the first day of the men’s NCAA Tournament and the Islanders’ pivotal game against the Red Wings.
Not sure who had a worse night, Kentucky or the Islanders. But at least the Mets finally had a night that tangibly vaulted them closer to playoff contention, even if it inexplicably took 138 days into the off-season to sign a potential difference-maker.
Per Baseball-Reference, Martinez posted a WAR of 1.9 last season, when he spent all but 12 innings last season at designated hitter for the Dodgers. That was his fourth-lowest full-season total since his breakout campaign in 2014. It’s also, by far, the most WAR collected by any of David Stearns’ 31 off-season additions who made it to the end of spring training with the Mets.
No other acquisition even registered a WAR of 1.0 last season (pitcher Adrian Houser came closest at 0.8), which is a bizarre approach for a team that should have a better idea than most just how thin the line is between irrelevance and hosting World Series games.
Despite the litany of injuries that derailed their season, the Mets won just nine fewer games than the NL champion Diamondbacks — against whom the Mets went 6-1. The trade deadline deal that sent Tommy Pham to Arizona might have been the only thing that kept the Mets from completing the sweep: Pham went 3-for-5 with a game-tying eighth-inning homer in the Diamondbacks’ 4-3 win on Sept. 11. And who knows what kind of butterfly effect a loss there might have had in the tight NL wild card race, where, counting tiebreakers, the Diamondbacks finished two games ahead of the seventh-place Cubs?
In addition, the Mets finished within shouting distance of the Diamondbacks despite their designated hitters finishing with the sixth-lowest batting average (percentage points ahead of the World Series champion Rangers and just behind the NL Central-winning Brewers) and ninth-lowest OPS (again just ahead of the Rangers).
Yet even with the likes of Martinez, Justin Turner, Jorge Soler and Joey Votto remaining unsigned into February or beyond, the Mets went into the final weekend of the Grapefruit League season insisting that their DH rotation would be led by Mark Vientos, who is hitting .205 with a .610 OPS in 81 big league games, and DJ Stewart, who hit .244 with 11 homers and 26 RBIs in 160 at-bats last season — but just .191 with one homer and seven RBIs outside of his 10-homer surge over a 17-game span from Aug. 15 through Sept. 9.
Martinez, meanwhile, finished last year with 33 homers and 103 RBIs, each of which would have ranked second on the Mets behind Pete Alonso, as well as an .893 OPS that would have easily led the team.
The Mets’ thriftiness was especially bizarre because it wasn’t saving Steve Cohen — he of the “Cohen tax” — a whole lot of money in 2024 luxury tax payments. “A whole lot of money” is relative, of course, because Cohen owed more than $80 million on a projected payroll of just north of $300 million prior to the Martinez signing. But still, what’s another $80 million when you might be one piece away from making the playoffs?
Perhaps Cohen was just falling into line with his fellow owners, all of whom waited until well into spring training to pursue the defending NY Cy Young Award winner (Blake Snell), the breakout pitching star of the 2023 playoffs (Jordan Montgomery), a four-time Gold Glove-award winning third baseman (Matt Chapman) as well as Martinez, who ranks among the top 10 in homers, RBIs, batting average and OPS since 2014. Any one of Snell, Montgomery or Chapman also would have helped the Mets, who don’t have an ace-caliber pitcher with Kodai Senga sidelined indefinitely and will be opening the season with Brett Baty getting a potential last shot at third base.
At least they have a designated hitter and cleanup hitter to slot behind Alonso — eventually. Martinez said Saturday he’d need about two weeks to get into game shape in Florida and/or the minor leagues. Fortunately for the Mets, it’s not like wild card races are likely to be decided by a player worth two wins by himself.
