Red Sox: Past free agency mistakes make Dave Dombrowski cautious
Boston Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski was duped by agent Scott Boras before and can’t let it happen again.
When super-agent Scott Boras leads a high-profile client to the free agent market he tends to shoot for the moon. More often than not, he gets it. This may result in the player earning a massive contract that carries significant risk as to whether they will ever live up to the value of the deal. This is a potential disaster that the Boston Red Sox must avoid when negotiating with Boras’ client, J.D. Martinez.
Free agency opened with Boras floating the concept of an 8-year, $200 million deal for Martinez. Thus far, no team has come close to that massive offer. The Red Sox have reportedly offered Martinez a five year deal for an unspecified amount. We can bet on the average annual value being similar to what Boras claims his client is worth but the duration he’s seeking is unreasonable for a 30-year old corner outfielder whose defensive limitations make him best suited for the designated hitter role.
The Red Sox aren’t willing to give him eight years. No team is going to go as high as eight years, right? Martinez is undoubtedly the top hitter on the market, coming off a season in which he blasted 45 home runs and led the majors in slugging percentage. He’s a prime target for a number of teams but the red flags he carries – age, defense, health – should make teams cautious of committing a long-term deal to the free agent slugger.
Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski knows this all too well.
Boras has a history of Jedi mind-tricking teams into overlooking the flaws and overpaying his clients despite the risks. He’s never been afraid to play the waiting game and the deeper we get into winter, the more desperate teams may become.
Dombrowski found this out the hard way. In 2012, when he was the general manager of the Detroit Tigers, Dombrowski signed free agent Prince Fielder to a massive 9-year, $214 million deal.
Fielder was coming off a career year in which he finished third in NL MVP voting but most teams viewed him as a significant long-term risk. While he was only 28 years old at the time and had remained relatively healthy to that point in his career, there were legitimate concerns about how a player with his mammoth body type would hold up over the course of his next contract. Players as large of Fielder rarely have long careers, including his father, Cecil Fielder, who retired at age 34.
The small-market Milwaukee Brewers couldn’t afford to take that risk, not even for a player who developed into a superstar during his seven seasons with the franchise. Once Boras started talking about a $200+ million deal, the Brewers bowed out of the negotiations.
The staggering contract demands scared every team away, yet Boras held firm. When the Tigers lost Victor Martinez to a season-ending knee injury, Dombrowski was sent scrambling for a replacement who could keep Detroit in the mix of World Series contenders. It took until the end of January but Boras was able to dupe a team into giving Fielder the lucrative deal he was seeking.
The signing initially paid off in Fielder’s first year in Detroit. He hit 30 homers, topped 100 RBI and helped the Tigers reach the World Series. They ultimately fell to the San Francisco Giants in the Fall Classic, with Fielder going an anemic 1-for-14 in the series, but he lived up to his contract in Year 1.
2013 was a step back, as Fielder set career-lows in home runs (25), slugging (.457) and OPS (.819). It was a solid season but not one worthy of his hefty salary. Dombrowski realized this and took the opportunity to bail on the rest of the contract, shipping him to the Texas Rangers after only two seasons.
Fielder’s career in Texas was a disaster. He did bounce back with an All-Star campaign in 2015, but that season was sandwiched between two in which he played a combined 131 games and saw his production fall off a cliff. He hit a meager .212 with a .626 OPS and eight home runs in 89 games with the Rangers in 2016 before being forced to call it a career.
Chronic neck injuries ended Fielder’s career prematurely. The 2016 season would be his last, as he retired at the age of 32, five seasons in to the nine-year deal he had signed with Detroit.
This isn’t the exact same scenario but we can draw some parallels between Fielder’s case and the one Dombrowski now faces in targeting Martinez.
Boston’s status as a contender and desperate need for a power threat make Martinez an obvious solution to a short-term need, just as Fielder was for a Tigers team that lost their designated hitter.
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Detroit was going to get Victor Martinez back in the lineup in 2013 and only needed a temporary stopgap to fill in while he recovered from knee surgery, but that didn’t stop them from handing Fielder a nine-year deal to fill the same role. Boston is already set with a loaded outfield and they have Hanley Ramirez plugged in at DH, but that won’t stop them from chasing Martinez to fill a short-term need for a home run hitter.
Martinez doesn’t have the body type concerns that Fielder had but he does have a lengthy injury history. He has topped 125 games played only once in his seven year career. None of his previous injuries were of the chronic variety so there is little concern of a re-occurrence of those past ailments, yet Martinez still carries the dreaded injury prone label.
He’s already a poor defensive outfielder and those skills will further deteriorate with age. While Martinez wants to continue playing the outfield, he could become a huge liability if he isn’t plugged into the DH role in the latter stages of his next deal. This should scare off most NL teams and may even make the Red Sox think twice about committing long-term to a player who inhibits roster flexibility.
Despite these risks, Dombrowski remains interested in Martinez’ bat, so long as he can be signed to a reasonable contract. The term “reasonable” should be used lightly for a player who could earn north of $25 million per season. It’s the length of the contract that matters most, with the Red Sox only looking to go as far as five years.
That offer is already on the table. This is typically the part where Boras would pit suitors against each other to drive up the price, yet a slow free agent market has left him short on teams to play his game. Any team would be thrilled to have a hitter of his caliber in their lineup but few teams have both the financial resources to afford him and a place to put him on the field.
Dombrowski knows what he’s willing to offer for Martinez and Boras believes he can get more for his client. The two sides remain at a stalemate waiting to see if another team will join in. Unless another serious suitor tops their current offer, Dombrowski would only be bidding against himself if he continued to push for a deal to get done. That’s essentially what happened to him in 2012, when desperation to fill a gaping hole in the lineup led him to overpay Fielder when no other team was offering a contract in the same ballpark.
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He learned his lesson and Dombrowski isn’t going to be duped by Boras again. There’s no need to raise his bid when nobody else at the table has shown a willingness to call and most seem ready to fold.