Mets add depth
Sign Martinez as IF/OF option
The Mets just keep making moves.
The Amazin’s have signed INF/OF Jose Martinez to a split one-year contract on Thursday, the team announced. The deal is worth $1 million with $500,000 in incentives if Martinez is added to the major league roster — $225,000 in incentives if he remains in the minors, according to MLB.com.
Martinez is a righty bat and the Mets lineup is very left-heavy. He also can play both left and right field and first base. Even though Martinez’s defense hasn’t always been surefire, adding Martinez makes sense for a Mets roster lacking in overall balance.
Martinez, 32, has played for three teams over his five-year major league career. He debuted with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2016 and spent four season there, but made a splash particularly in his first two full seasons in St. Louis — he hit .309/.379/.518 in 2017 and .305/.364/.457 in 2018 and that season’s batting average was ranked No. 7 in the National League. He also bat .538 with three RBI in seven games during the 2019 postseason.
The Cardinals traded Martinez in 2020 along with Randy Arozarena to the Tampa Bay Rays. Midway through the pandemic-shortened, 60-game season, the Rays traded Martinez to the Chicago Cubs. He played a total number of 34 games last season between the two teams, but his performance at the plate was a far cry from where he was in St.
Louis. Between the 24 games he played with the Rays and the 10 he played with the Cubs, Martinez hit .182/.265/.295. But the 2020 season was strange for many around the league, what with the shortened spring trainings, regularly changing game schedules and of course trying to navigate playing in a pandemic without certainty of health and safety.
The Mets hope Martinez can return to his Cardinals’ form, since at the plate is where they’ll need him most, especially since he also happens to be particularly good at hitting off lefty pitchers. Martinez is a career .307 hitter with a .915 OPS against lefties and a .283 hitter with a .765 OPS against righties.
Martinez can also play both left and right field and first base, though, again, he’s more known for his offense than his defense. He has a career .990 fielding percentage at first base and a combined .983 fielding percentage in the outfield. That includes 9 errors at first base (7 in 2018) and four in the outfield (three in 2019).
But Martinez does have experience in the outfield, something the Mets could use and will hope to help him improve in.
Martinez, who is from La Guaira, Venezuela, has spent his offseason back in his home country.