It’s confirmed! Cleveland catcher Victor Martinez has been traded to the Boston Red Sox for pitchers Justin Masterson, Nick Hagadone and Bryan Price.
The deal brings a lot of versatility to the Red Sox offense as the power hitting catcher can also fill in at first and DH, providing a great hitting safety net behind DH David Ortiz, Mike Lowell, Kevin Youkilis and Varitek. (If third baseman Lowell gets re-injured, Youkilis will slide over to third freeing up first base for Martinez) There is no word yet what the role of recently acquired first baseman Adam LaRoche will be, but SI.com’s Jon Heyman reports the Braves would be interested. But don’t think trading for LaRoche was a bad move, because you don’t need to take up a spot on the roster for him to very valuable “not a Yankee” position. (See below for an update on LaRoche – He gone!)
As far as contract specifics on Victor Martinez, rotoworld.com reports:
Martinez is owed about $2 million for the rest of this season and carries a $7 million club option for 2010. He’s batting .284/.368/.464 with 15 home runs and 67 RBI in 377 at-bats for Cleveland, tallying 52 games behind the plate and another 47 at first base.
As the trade deadline neared it became apparent that Boston would probably either pull off a deal for San Diego first baseman Adrian Gonzalez or Martinez and the Padres wouldn’t back off of their high asking price. Red Sox fans cannot be disappointed to see one of the best hitting catchers of last decade come over to Boston to help them try to seal up at least a wild card spot, but ideally beat out the Yankees once again in the ridiculously competitive AL East.
Cleveland declared themselves sellers earlier in the week with the trade of starting pitcher Cliff Lee. Getting relief pitcher Justin Masterson and starting pitchers Nick Hagadone and Bryan Price will help Cleveland achieve their number one goal of rebuilding their pitching staff.
UPDATE – (From Boston.com)
Yahoo! Sports’s Gordon Edes reports that the Red Sox have dealt Adam LaRoche to the Braves for first baseman Casey Kotchman. Kotchman, 26, is batting .282 with six homers and 41 RBIs this season. LaRoche spent the first three years of his career with the Braves. He was acquired by the Red Sox on July 22 from the Pirates for a pair of prospects.
Here’s the scouting report on Nick Hagadone from soxprospects.com: (Click the link to read more and see Nick Hagadone’s career minor league stats)
Big lefty whose fastball sits around 92-94 mph and tops out at 98 mph with very good life. Aggressive, throws strikes and gets ahead in the count. Also mixes in a biting 82-83 mph plus slider, and an improving 80-81 mph changeup. Very good control. Team leader and a hard worker. A closer in college, Hagadone could make it as a starter if his changeup keeps improving. Not a lot of miles on his arm. Needs to work on keeping his delivery consistent. At this stage, despite having fluid arm action, his delivery is a bit compact. The team is still undecided as to whether Hagadone will be a starter or a reliever long-term. Hagadone had TJ Surgery in early June 2008, and returned to the mound in Greenville almost exactly one year later.
