110 Million Dollar Man

The Red Sox found their super slugger.

In his first notable move as manager, Alex Cora hit it out of the ballpark by signing breakout star RF J.D. Martinez to a $110 million deal. Now let's qualify this term breakout star before anyone accuses this as a rash deal. Martinez had the best year of his career this season, most notably with career bests finishing 3rd in the league with 45 home runs and 14th with 104 RBIs in just 119 games. However this was not his first stellar season as he had a remarkable year in 2015 with Detroit, hitting 38 home runs, 168 hits, 102 RBIs, and 319 total bases in 158 games. He then had an off year in 2016 and returned better than ever this past season. Clearly his elite play as of late is no fluke and he should be looking to have yet another strong offensive outing this season with Boston. The most remarkable thing of all of Martinez' story is that he's worked his way up to this all star play all the way from being the 611th pick in the 2009 draft. Cora has now managed to acquire this fairy tale story of a player on a relatively cheap 5 year, $110 million deal, especially cheap compared to slugger Giancarlo Stanton's 11 year $325 million contract. The only trouble with Stanton perhaps is that the Red Sox have too much depth at the outfielder position with star starters Mookie Betts, Andrew Benintendi, and Jackie Bradley Jr. backed up by Brock Holt and Tzu-Wei Lin. The Red Sox have refused to trade any of their starters thus far and going forward, so Cora will have to do some rearranging, either playing Martinez at DH, having Benintendi or Bradley come off the bench, or switching one of the outfield starters' positions. While there is a slight problem at hand, it's certainly one the Red Sox will like to have and Cora has a very balanced and talented roster on their hands now. Boston anxiously awaits to see how this team led by new manager Alex Cora and new signing J.D. Martinez fair in the AL East, especially compared to their bolstered rivals, the New York Yankees.