Red Sox: Is this the J.D. Martinez Boston farewell tour?

Is this the end of J.D. Martinez’s days with the Red Sox?

The Red Sox will be losing their resident designated hitter next season. J.D. Martinez will be a free agent, and the odds are in favor of Martinez taking his bat elsewhere. This season has not been power-hitting kind to the righty slugger, and at 34 years old, the clock is starting to run down on physical skills.

When I look at Martinez, three seasons stand out: 2018, 2019, and 2021. Martinez provided the punch in all three, especially in the long ball department. After half a game schedule slate this season, Martinez has just eight home runs and a figure he could obtain in a good month in the not-so-recent past.

The spray charts show just one ball hit out to right field this season. Martinez is also posting a career-high 25.6% on balls hit the opposite way, and they are just not going out. Other metrics such as exit velocity, hard-hit percentage, line drive percentage, contact percent, and a plethora of others show no sudden crash and burn as happened in Martinez’s lost 2020 season.

Martinez is still a .300 hitter and will undoubtedly be at the end of the season. J.D. still drives the ball enough to have 26 doubles and could easily top his American League-leading figure (42) of 2021.

In August, Martinez will be 35 years old and is a one-trick pony, which is hitting. Putting Martinez in the field was risky, even when he was a frisky youth. Martinez is a splendid DH and will continue to produce unless this season is a harbinger of a 2020 repeat. Skills can evaporate quickly, but pitchers are not putting him away with a series of heaters, curves, or change-ups. Martinez still has a great 143 wRC+.

Undoubtedly, the Red Sox are looking lovingly at the removal of $19.350 million, which is Martinez’s salary in the last year of a five-year contract. Boston could replace Martinez with an internal or external option, and that option in Red Sox terminology means cheaper.

Cheap comes with an inherent risk, and watching Bobby Dalbec or Franchy Cordero flay away at DH is not my baseball cup of tea. The Rafael Devers option is always in play but would the young slugger view it as a demotion? Devers could be part of the one more year and done club.

Cutting Martinez loose does not mean “See Ya!” for his Boston days. Even with Scott Boras as his agent, the market could define a possible return to Boston on short money (in baseball terms) and short years. Unlikely but not to be dismissed.

What is the unknown in the sudden power outage? At this point, 34 RBI does not cut it for a job description that says “run production,” and that’s it. In the past, Martinez has gone on a home run tear, but that was a youthful J.D. and not the one who should sleepwalk to 100 ribbies.

Martinez is quite studious at his game planning and hitting strategy. He rebuilt himself from a borderline player to an All-Star with one of the game’s most potent and disciplined bats. No doubt Martinez has been at work attempting to determine just why those red dots on the spray chart are so elusive to right field and elsewhere?

The Red Sox are in the hunt, and a Martinez producing a bushel of runs can lighten the load on his fellow batters and be a nice emotional boost for a pitching staff. The run production can be a warning to the wary buyer and a crushing debilitation to the team. The next half of the season is not only a playoff push for the Red Sox but a future contract push for Martinez.