Giancarlo, J.D. to face different degrees of heat
FORT MYERS, Fla. — Perhaps the best way to put it is like this: Giancarlo Stanton faces more national pressure. J.D. Martinez faces more local pressure.
Stanton, the owner of baseball’s biggest-ever contract, the larger-than-life Duke of Exit Velocity and the reigning National League Most Valuable Player, joins up with his fellow behemoth Aaron Judge, the King of Exit Velocity, to try to lead the storied New York Yankees back to the World Series after falling one game short last year. His trade from the tearing-down Marlins to the Yankees electrified the baseball world at the game’s Winter Meetings.
Martinez, the hitting machine, is expected to introduce himself as a member of the Red Sox on Thursday at JetBlue Park. His five-year, $110 million contract to essentially replace the legendary David Ortiz (who retired after 2016) at designated hitter is sizable, yet it’s barely a third of the $325 million the Marlins committed to Stanton after the 2014 season, with the Yankees now paying $265 million of that.
Stanton will face heat in The Bronx if he doesn’t perform. However, few would dispute that heat in New York can feel like a cool breeze in the cauldron of Fenway Park.
“It is different, different than New York or anywhere else, for sure,’’ Red Sox pitcher David Price told USA Today this past week. “I know how tough it is to be here. It’s tough when things aren’t going good. I know that. But I can only imagine how good of a feeling it is when things do go good.”
Price, the thin-skinned lefthander, experienced tremendous turbulence during his first two seasons in Boston. In conjunction with left elbow woes and disappointing performances have come multiple feuds with media members — most prominently Hall of Fame pitcher Den- nis Eckersley, who works as a commentator for the Red Sox’s regional sports network NESN.
With Martinez on the premises Wednesday — he underwent his physical, though the results didn’t come back in time to announce the signing — Price discussed the DH-outfielder, with whom he played for the Tigers in 2014 and 2015. Asked how Martinez would handle the Boston scrutiny, Price said, “He’s got my vote. He’s different from me. That’s good.”
Price appeared in good spirits Wednesday, laughing as he received questions about Martinez’s arrival renewing the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry.
“Sure, yeah,” he said. “You guys want it, let’s do it: We hate the Yankees. We hate the Yankees. Hate ’em.”
Rest assured, when the Yankees and Red Sox actually face off in the regular season, everyone will feel the renewed buzz of the rivalry. Right now, in the tranquility of early spring training, it’s a struggle for the guys who actually play the games.
“Obviously, it was a very big move and it was a move that was heard and seen around baseball,” Red Sox center fielder Jackie Bradley said of the Stanton trade. “You take a guy who’s home-run champ and you plop him on a team [that already hit a lot of home runs], we all could do a little bit of math.”
“I just know both teams are going to be pretty good. In a sense of that, the rivalry seems like it’s going to be a slugfest on both sides,” right fielder Mookie Betts said. “But both teams have some good pitchers, too. You never know what’s going to happen.”
Though the Red Sox’s clubhouse features a comparable level of young talent to the Yankees’, few would disagree that the current group of Yankees seem to have more fun than their Boston counterparts, as exemplified by last year’s “Thumbs Down,” “The Toe-Night Show” and “Pointing Back to the Dugout After a Big Hit” endeavors. It could have to do with the individual personalities and nothing else.
That the Yankees share their large city with the Mets, whereas the Red Sox have their smaller city all to themselves, has to factor into that, right? Boston does seem to challenge folks, and reward them, in a different way.
Every casual baseball fan in the world wants to know what will happen with Stanton and the Yankees. Every hard-core fan in New England needs Martinez to deliver. Whose hot seat would you rather occupy?