The Detroit Tigers have agreed to re-sign designated hitter Victor Martinez, reports said Wednesday. Martinez will be given a four-year, $68 million deal, Jon Heyman of CBS Sports reports. Martinez's $17 million annual average value is the largest ever for a designated hitter. He will be kept under contract through 2018, his age-39 season. The deal is pending a physical. Many believed that the Tigers would be unable to retain the main cog in their lineup in Martinez, considering his phenomenal 2014 campaign and Detroit's large payroll. But the Tigers want to win and win now. Keeping Martinez, they obviously feel, will help them win in 2015 and hopefully beyond. The 35-year-old Martinez was signed by the Cleveland Indians in 1996 out of Venezuela. He became their No. 1 catcher during the early part of his career. From 2004 to 2007, Martinez posted an .860 OPS with the Indians. His great offense and on-base skills have always been with him throughout his career. Martinez was flipped to the Red Sox in the deal that sent Justin Masterson to Cleveland. He spent about a year and a half with Boston, before being granted free agency, where he signed with the Tigers on a four-year, $50 million pact, which has really paid off for Detroit. This past season, Martinez hit .335/.409/.565 with 32 home runs and 103 runs batted in over 641 plate appearances. Martinez was named to his fifth career All-Star Game and won the Silver Slugger award. The Tigers will be putting a lot of payroll into three players. They now have $470 million committed to Miguel Cabrera, Justin Verlander, and Martinez though the 2023 season, leading many to believe that they will be taking the same road the Philadelphia Phillies have taken with signing old veterans. The Tigers want to win now and they definitely have proved that. But, thinking about the future is not the worst thing to do either. Martinez will get to stay with Detroit and perhaps with another championship on a new lucrative deal. The question is whether or not this signing hurts the Tigers majorly down the road. --Devan F.
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The New York Mets have signed outfielder Michael Cuddyer to a two-year, $21 million deal, they announced on Monday. Cuddyer had been offered a one-year, $15.3 million qualifying offer from the Rockies last Monday and was thought to perhaps accept the deal, considering his age, options, and possible draft pick compensation. Obviously, he declined the qualifying offer in favor of the Mets, who will now be losing their 15th overall pick in the 2015 MLB Draft. The Rockies will receive an extra pick in a "compensatory round." The 35-year-old Cuddyer was selected by the Minnesota Twins with the 9th overall pick in the 1997 MLB Draft. He played 11 seasons with the Twins, producing solid numbers. He was selected to the 2011 All-Star Game, the first of his career coming at age 32. The Rockies signed Cuddyer in December 2011 to a three-year, $31.5 million contract. He won the 2012 National League batting title and was selected to his second career All-Star Game. This past year, Cuddyer hit .332/.376/.579 (.955 OPS) with 10 home runs and 31 runs batted in in 205 plate appearances. He missed 61 games this season with a broken left shoulder, while also missing time on multiple occasions with a hamstring issue on both sides. The Mets deal with Cuddyer makes a ton of sense for the team. Cuddyer, traditionally a right fielder, will be able to produce in New York until top prospect Michael Conforto comes to the major leagues, which should be either near or following the end of Cuddyer's deal. Mets right fielders hit for a good OPS, ranking 14th in the majors, but their left fielders hit for a .615 OPS, ranking second-worst. Cuddyer's deal makes sense for the Mets, and as they inch closer to contention as their prospects make their way through the minors, they were willing to sacrifice a draft pick in order to sign an interesting free agent, one that will definitely help the clubhouse chemistry and still can produce when he is on the field. Leaving the high altitude in Denver may help improve Cuddyer's health, but the Mets shouldn't expect a full 600 plate appearances from him in 2015. --Devan F. The Los Angeles Dodgers announced yesterday that they've hired former Athletics assistant GM Farhan Zaidi as the team's new general manager and former Padres GM Josh Byrnes as senior vice president of baseball operations. President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman announced the two hirings in a press release. Here is a quote of Friedman's (via MLBTR.com): "It is very exciting for us to be able to add two exceptional, veteran baseball executives like Farhan and Josh...Farhan’s primary focus will be the Major League team and player acquisitions while Josh will concentrate on the oversight of scouting and player development. However, they will both work closely with me on all aspects of baseball operations in our efforts to make the Dodgers' front office and team the best it can possibly be." The 37-year-old Zaidi will be taking upon his first role as a general manager. He was born in Canada and raised in the Philippines. He took a different path to becoming a top baseball executive than that is of the norm. Zaidi has a Bachelor of Science degree from MIT and a PhD in economics from UC-Berkeley.
While at Berkeley, Zaidi read the book Moneyball, which highlights the analytics of the Oakland Athletics front office department. He saw a job posting for a baseball operations job with the Athletics and applied, beating out over 1,000 other applicants for the job. Billy Beane called Zaidi "absolutely brilliant" and credited him with the signing of Cuban outfielder Yoenis Cespedes (who is now with Boston). Zaidi became the Director of Baseball Operations for the Athletics' front office prior to the 2013 season. In 2014, he became an assistant general manager. Andrew Friedman, one of the best sabermetric minds in baseball, has completely changed the Dodgers front office since being hired from the Rays early into the offseason. Friedman removed GM Ned Colletti, who is still with the team, and has slowly begun to transform Los Angeles' front office from one that throws money at big free agents to one that will use metrics to determine acquisitions. The hiring of Zaidi is just one of the ways that he shows this. --Devan F. The Minnesota Twins have hired Paul Molitor to become their next manager. Molitor had been in the running with multiple other candidates, which included Red Sox bench coach Torey Luvullo and Doug Mientkiewicz as the two others in the running that had multiple interviews. Molitor reportedly accepted the job on Friday, but the Twins said that they were still in contract negotiations. Molitor will be the manager for three years -- from 2015 to 2017. The 58-year-old Molitor will become the second active manager to be a former Hall of Fame player (Ryne Sandberg is the other). He played with the Twins at the back end of his career, from 1996 to 1998, his age 39 to 41 seasons. However, he spent most of his career with the Brewers, who he played 15 seasons with. Molitor is a seven-time All-Star. He has 3,319 hits, which ranks 10th all-time. Over his 21 year career, he hit .306/.369/.448. Molitor was selected to the Hall of Fame first ballot in 2004, with 85.2 percent of the vote. He has never managed over his entire career, but served as a bench coach for the Twins following his retirement. Also, this past season, he served on the Twins coaching staff as well. Molitor is a Minnesota native and was born in St. Paul, Minnesota. He attended the University of Minnesota, where he was drafted. He will be accepting the managerial position following the firing of former Twins manager Ron Gardenhire in September. -Devan F. Today, baseball teams had to decide wether they wanted to offer their pending free agents a qualifying offer. A qualifying offer is a one-year, $15.3 million contract offered to a player that spent the entire season with the team offering him one. Players that decline qualifying offers are then subject to draft pick compensation, which means that their new destination (if it is somewhere other than their former team), would have to give up its top, unprotected pick. His former team would receive an extra draft pick. Players have a week (November 10) to decide whether they want to agree to the contract.
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