J.D. Martinez is a worthwhile boom or bust candidate

Yesterday the Athletic’s Jim Bowden published one of his trademark articles (subscription required) wherein he ranks a thing, and in this case that thing is the quality of all 30 MLB teams’ opening day lineups. Somewhat surprisingly, the Mets are slotted in at 14th behind the likes of the Cubs, Reds, and Padres even with the acquisition of J.D. Martinez considered for the rankings. These lists should generally be taken as the silly things they are, particularly when folks like Bowden lean almost exclusively on subjective reasoning to make their case. Still, his lukewarm note of the addition of Martinez is of interest:

“J.D. Martinez is a great pickup who will provide protection for Alonso in the lineup plus his leadership and batting cage presence will help the development of the Mets’ young players. “

It’s safe to state that most Mets fans are under no illusion that the 36-year-old Martinez is some kind of magic elixir that will cure all of what ails the team on the offensive side of the ball, but there should be little doubt that he’s likely to be a substantial improvement over what the team was planning on trotting out of the DH spot this season.

Right?

FanGraph’s positional power rankings for designated hitter, also a list but one that leverages projected fWAR to rank the teams, places the Mets at 24th in the majors. The team’s ranking is also surprising here in that Martinez is projected to accumulate just 0.7 fWAR per ZiPS. That’d be his lowest mark since the all-around non-standard 2020 season, but before that you’d have to go all the way back to his pre-breakout days with Houston to find anything lower. More importantly, and as a DH that likely won’t see much time with the glove, his projected ZiPS wRC+ for 2024 is 106. Once again (excluding 2020), you have to go way back to his Houston days to find a wRC+ that low.

So what’s driving such a pessimistic projection? Ben Clemens at FanGraph’s does a great job of breaking down what appear to be the underlying reasons for a projection that certainly isn’t what the Mets hope they’ll get out of Martinez even on a sweetheart deal. In short, he struck out more while walking less than his career norms in 2023, and the projections believe that trend will continue with far fewer home runs and much less power than he had last season (with a sprinkling of some age-related regression and worse luck). For context, Mark Vientos is projected for a wRC+ of 99.

While even Ben doesn’t think the numbers will wind up quite that bad, there’s certainly reason enough to think 2023 might have been his last big hurrah. Based on his contract with the Mets and the fact that he remained on the market so long, it appears teams were wary of a drop-off as well. Even so, Martinez brings the prospect of something the Mets could use more of: raw power and consistently hard contact (when he makes contact). In 2023, and per Statcast, Martinez was top ten in hard hit percentage, average exit velocity, and barrels per plate appearance. The 2023 Mets as a team were relatively middling in slugging and hard hit rate, and they didn’t tend to barrel up as much as the top teams did. The 2023 version of Martinez bolsters these attributes, potentially adding another dangerous hitter to a lineup short on sluggers an opposing pitcher would be hesitant to throw to beyond Pete Alonso, maybe Francisco Lindor, and if you squint a little possibly Francisco Alvarez.

While the Mets’ biggest concerns heading into the season were without question related to their starting pitching, it doesn’t hurt to lengthen the lineup with a proven commodity on a great, short-term deal. The downside boils down to a worst-case scenario where Martinez truly falls off a cliff and players like Vientos get more plate appearances than would be ideal for a team with an outside shot at the postseason. That would put the Mets exactly where they were a week ago with zero impact beyond 2024. The best-case scenario is that the team gets the same monster production Martinez provided the Dodgers in 2023 at a remarkably discounted rate.

It’s a low-risk gamble a team like the Mets should be making at this point in their retooling process as they balance their efforts to rebuild an entire organizational philosophy with remaining at least nominally competitive.