The Red Sox on Friday signed reliever Chris Martin, 36, to a two-year, $17.5 million contract.
Right-handed reliever Chris Martin and the Boston Red Sox are in agreement on a two-year, $17.5 million contract, pending physical, sources familiar with the deal tell ESPN. Martin, 36, was magnificent for the Dodgers after a deadline trade and parlayed it into a multiyear deal.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 2, 2022
The first significant addition to the 2023 Red Sox bullpen came one day after the Sox were used as leverage by Zach Eflin to score a contract with the Rays.
(Eflin was an intriguing possibility, but he has a lot of question marks.)
Martin, not Eflin, is the pitcher the Red Sox need if Boston wants to compete in 2023.
He doesn’t walk people (3.3 percent career walk rate). Strikes out a ton (30 percent or higher strikeout rate in three of the last four seasons). He has high leverage/late innings experience and success. Limits home runs, with more than six allowed only once in seven seasons. And he doesn’t allow an ungodly percentage of inherited runners to score off him (16 of 59 in his career).
Signing Martin is an excellent start to fixing Boston’s bullpen ailments.
But it’s just a start. And it seems the Sox understand that and aren’t close to done adding relievers.
Chris Martin is a Perfect Fit for the Red Sox
Martin spent 2022 between the Cubs and Dodgers, posting a 3.05 ERA/2.55 xERA/2.18 FIP with a .98 WHIP, a 33 percent strikeout rate, and a two percent walk rate over 56 innings. He allowed six home runs and held opposing batters to a .230/.249/.373/.622 slash line.
He held batters to .541 OPS with runners in scoring position, a .575 OPS in high-leverage situations, a .521 OPS with two-out RISP, and a .610 OPS in late/close situations.
Martin had a 2.40 ERA in the 7th inning and a 2.51 ERA in the 8th last year (3.45 career ERA in the 7th-9th).
He also posted 50.4 percent and 49.7 percent groundball rates in the last two seasons.
How does Chris Martin’s 2022 fare against the Red Sox bullpen?
The Red Sox bullpen collectively had the ninth-highest groundball rate (44.6 percent) in MLB, was 14th in strikeout rate (24.3 percent), 23rd in walk rate (10.3 percent), 24th in WHIP (1.37), 17th in home runs allowed (143), and allowed 40 percent of inherited runners to score (dead last).
Red Sox relievers with the best strikeout rates last season were John Schreiber (28.8 percent), Garrett Whitlock (26.4 percent), Ryan Brasier (24.3 percent), and Austin Davis (24 percent).
Whitlock (4.8 percent), Brasier (4.9 percent), and Schreiber (7.4 percent) had the lowest walk rates.
Schreiber (1.2 percent), Tanner Houck (1.2 percent), Hirokazu Sawamura (1.8 percent), and Davis (1.8 percent) are the only Red Sox relievers to best Chris Martin’s 2.7 percent home run rate in 2022.
Boston’s relief corps had a 4.11 ERA in innings 7-9 (a 3.00 7th-inning ERA brings that down considerably) in 2022.
Chris Martin is an instant — and considerable — upgrade to the Red Sox bullpen.
The Dodgers Made Him Even Better
Over his 31.1 innings with the Cubs, the soon-to-be 37-year-old posted a 4.31 ERA/3.02 FIP with a 1.34 WHIP, four walks, 40 strikeouts, and five home runs allowed. Opponents hit .297/.316/.500/.816 against him; 51.7 percent of the time, the ball was on the ground.
Over his final 24.2 innings with the Dodgers, the Arlington, Texas, native had a 1.46 ERA/1.13 FIP with a .52 WHIP, 34 strikeouts, one walk, and one home run allowed. Opposing hitters batted .135/.152/.191/.343 against him. This time, the ball was on the ground 42.9 percent of the time.
What contributed to the shift in performance? It might have something to do with a change in pitch mix and location, including scrapping his curveball entirely.
Theoretically, the quality of the defense behind him could have been a factor, too.
Don’t let Chris Martin’s first-half struggles fool you, though. That was his only real blip since returning to MLB in 2018 after two seasons in Japan.
Red Sox Not Paying for Chris Martin’s Good Second Half
Since 2019, Martin has a 144 ERA+ with a 1.02 WHIP, 19 walks, 192 strikeouts, and only 20 home runs allowed in 173 innings.
Seven of 30 inherited runners have scored off him since 2021. And he has the second-best walk rate in that time.
As mentioned already, he has posted strikeout rates of 30 percent or higher in three of the last four seasons.
Hardly “bargain bin shopping.”
The Red Sox had much to like about Chris Martin even before the Dodgers made him better.
The one knock on him, though, is he does allow hard contact (40 percent or higher since 2019).
That’s about all he does “wrong.”
Chris Martin, now a Red Sox for the second time, had a challenging path to even get to the big leagues.
Martin’s first foray with Red Sox came in 2011 when they signed him out of Indy Ball that March after a long bout with a shoulder injury. He made it to Triple-A by 2013, but the Sox traded him, along with Franklin Morales, to the Rockies for Jonathan Herrera.
To make room on the Red Sox 40-man roster (which is now full) for Chris Martin, the club outrighted Ronaldo Hernandez.
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