Nick Martinez opted out of his Padres contract at the end of the offseason but he and the club agreed to a new deal last week. The club made it official today by announcing the deal, and Dennis Lin of The Athletic added some more information about the incentives.
As a recap, it’s technically a three-year, $26MM deal but with a convoluted structure. Martinez will get a $10MM base salary in 2023, which is the straightforward part. After that, the club will have to decide whether or not to trigger two $16MM club options for 2024 and 2025, essentially a two-year, $32MM extension. If they decline, Martinez will get to decide whether or not to trigger two player options valued at $8MM each, essentially a two-year, $16MM extension. Since player options are considered guaranteed, that $16MM option and the $10MM base in 2023 combine to form a $26MM guarantee.
Adding some extra layers of complication are the incentives that Lin outlines, which reflect the uncertain role Martinez will play going forward. He started 2022 in the rotation but eventually got bumped to the bullpen, with his new contract seemingly accounting for a similar trajectory in 2023. Martinez will get paid based on games started, earning an extra $500K at 10, 15, 20 and 25 starts. In terms of relieving, he’ll get $100K at 10 appearances and 20 appearances, $200K at 30, 40, 50 and 60 appearances. For games finished, he will get $200K each at 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 and 40 finishes.
That’s technically $4.4MM in available incentives, though there’s no way Martinez unlocks all of those. For instance, if he makes 25 starts, he’s unlikely to trigger many of the relief incentives, since a healthy pitcher will make about 32-33 starts over a full season. However, this contract allows Martinez to continue increasing his earnings whether he’s starting or relieving, so long as he’s healthy.
The aforementioned option values can also change, as Lin adds that there are escalators based on Martinez hitting certain innings totals, making the All-Star team or finishing in the top 10 in Cy Young voting. Those details aren’t publicly known at this time.
Going forward, the Friars have Joe Musgrove, Yu Darvish and Blake Snell taking up the first three spots in the rotation. Martinez is a candidate to take one of the spots at the back end, but subsequent moves by the team could push him to the bullpen. Last year, he posted a 4.30 ERA as a starter and a 2.67 as a reliever. His strikeout, walk and ground ball rates were all better out of the bullpen than the rotation.
Love we got Nick back and don’t get torched AAV-wise
Seems like kind of an over pay…..
It does seem like an overpay, but they must be confident he can reproduce his 2nd half stats. As an SP he had a 4.30 ERA, but as an RP it was 2.67, along with 8 saves. If he replicates those numbers and is their full time closer the contract doesn’t seem too bad.
He won’t be the closer.
My bad, I completely forgot they had Josh Hader.
Imagine giving this much thought to a replacement level MLB starter’s contract
Couldn’t be me
Get over it
Sounds like he’s willing to RP after all, which increases his value (to the Padres)
Big fan of the contract structure. Performance for pay.
Could be an overpay. But “utility” pitchers are quite valuable for the long season. I like the creativity in performance based incentives as well. It’s by no means a guarantee, but it does push the needle a little bit more in favor of living up to or exceeding the contract value.
Yup. He was extremely useful this year. There were several times he came in after a starter was struggling, and went 4-5 innings in unplanned relief..and several other occasions when he came in in the 6th, and went the distance for the save. Personally, I love this signing.
He gets big outs. It’s a fair contract. Wait till you see deGrom deal. The price of pitching is going up
Signing him is better than trying to replace him. He was productive. Hope fully he’ll have a comparable year next season.