That will be up to the Red Sox, according to Victor Martinez‘s agent Alen Nero.
According to WEEI.com, Nero claims that Martinez’s future following the 2010 season is entirely up to the Boston brass, as his client would like to remain in the Hub.
The Red Sox have the catcher/first baseman under contract through the coming season, but if they don’t extend him between now and next December, and assuming the Twins wrap up Joe Mauer this season, Martinez will become the top free-agent catcher on the market.
“As much as he would love to remain with the Red Sox, the concept of having to go through this again is now more palatable. We’ll have to see,” Nero told WEEI.com. “It’s going to be entirely on the Red Sox.”
Martinez hit .303 with 23 homers and 108 RBIs in 2009 split between Boston and Cleveland. The 30-year-old also posted a career-high in games played this year (155), splitting time between catcher (85 games) and first base (70). Martinez has already been penciled in as Boston’s everyday catcher in 2010, his first full year in the big leagues outside of Cleveland.
It was the Indians that signed him as an amateur free agent in 1996 when he was just 18-years-old. After a cup of coffee in 2002 and splitting time between Triple-A and Cleveland in 2003, V-Mart became the All-Star we know in 2004 when he belted 23 homers and drove in 108 runs. Five seasons later, Boston pried him away from the organization with which he came up, so the transition was a fearful one for the Martinez party.
Luckily for both he and the Red Sox, the move to the Hub was a smooth one. However, it also proves that the catcher can clearly handle another move — even if it means moving out of Boston come season’s end.
“If he needs to, he’ll be a free agent,” said Nero. “The trauma of leaving the Cleveland organization, which, for him — he loves his teammates and grew up in that organization — was catastrophic. For him to understand and immediately buy into the Red Sox culture, that’s a transition that he never dreamed of having to make. Now, the potential of him having to become a free agent at the end of the year is not scary.”