If you've lost track of baseball's laborious negotiations, good for you! Let's get up to speed: not much has happened, unless you count commissioner Rob Manfred claiming sans laugh track that owning a team is bad business. Ugh, these people.
Anyway, the talks, such as they are, have produced a couple of pieces of news that should considerably impact the Red Sox, starting with the adoption of the universal DH.
The owners pledged to make it part of the new CBA last week, and the players won't decline the opportunity to create 15 new jobs, especially since they'll mean real paydays for some older sluggers who'd otherwise risk tanked markets or even unemployment.
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This is a good news/bad news scenario for the Red Sox, but mostly bad. The good news is they just effectively doubled the market for J.D. Martinez if they decide to move their DH in a trade. Every NL team is starting its DH hunt from scratch, because one-dimensional sluggers don't have much of a home in the Senior Circuit. Chaim Bloom's leverage should never be better.
The bad news is two-fold. For one, it means trading J.D. Martinez, and he's still really good. It also severely decreases the possibility of Kyle Schwarber returning to Boston, because the otherwise lifelong National Leaguer will now have his pick of destinations, with his old Washington Nationals rumored to be interested.
It also creates more competition in a market that the Red Sox have dominated since the arrival of David Ortiz in 2003. Between Ortiz and Martinez, the Red Sox have overwhelmingly owned the best DH production over the last two decades, totaling 100 more home runs than anyone else, 300 more runs, and nearly 800 more total bases.
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We've already argued it would be a mistake to squander that advantage in the name of roster flexibility, but if your goal is exploiting market inefficiencies, then the Red Sox may be tempted to sit out the NL's presumed run on DHs.
In fact, the forces could be conspiring to hasten Martinez's departure. In addition to increased demand on the front end for a player of his services, there's also likely going to be decreased benefits from losing him in free agency next fall, because another concession that dribbled out of the owner's proposal is also high on the players' wish list, and it's the elimination of draft-pick compensation.
In the past, a team losing a top-tier free agent who had rejected a qualifying offer would receive a pick from the signing club. But the system stopped working when clubs starting emphasizing draft capital, thereby depressing the market for otherwise desirable players.
Under the new proposal, both the qualifying offer and attached draft picks would disappear. While it's not yet clear how teams that lose free agents will be compensated in the next CBA, if at all, we at least know that clubs won't have to surrender picks to make a signing.
That eliminates one of the motives for keeping Martinez on the roster through the completion of his contract. The Red Sox can't hold out for a pick.
Combine those two factors, and suddenly it looks like a market for Martinez could be robust. He hit .286 with 28 homers and 99 RBIs last year and then delivered a monster (.344-3-10) postseason. The fact that he can still play a little outfield shouldn't diminish his value, either.
A glance at even good NL teams reveals a lack of quality DH options, because roster management necessarily prioritized versatility and defense. For every Atlanta that could give the job to Jorge Soler or Adam Duvall, there's a St. Louis that's looking at … reuniting with Albert Pujols for a farewell tour?
The Giants won 107 games last year and their best bench bat was 35-year-old veteran Darin Ruf, who spent three years in his prime putting up monster seasons in Korea before landing in San Francisco in 2020. Even the mighty Dodgers are thin, unless they want to put $60 million utility man Chris Taylor there.
NL clubs are therefore in a position to transform their offenses if they're aggressive in the DH market. There are few better at the position better than Martinez. Crunch the variables, and it's hard to imagine Bloom won't explore his options.