Why J.D. Martinez Believes MLB Teams, Sport Of Baseball Is Losing Fans

J.D. Martinez takes the game of baseball seriously, which is why he isn’t a fan of the current collective bargaining agreement.

The Boston Red Sox designated hitter spoke to WEEI.com’s Rob Bradford on Monday and did not hold back his thoughts on the CBA, and why he thinks the sport and Major League Baseball teams are losing fans.

“In the new CBA we have to figure out a way to make teams competitive,” Martinez told Bradford. “I believe we are losing a lot of fan bases in certain cities because there are no rewards for winning. There’s more of a reward for losing in today’s game than anything. I think we’re losing a lot of fans because teams are more motivated to lose than they are to win. Right now you can figure out the top three or four teams in the league and what teams are going to be competing for the World Series. That’s not how it should be. That’s what the game needs to get better at, making it more balanced.

“… Take away rewards from teams for losing,” he added. “That whole idea isn’t working. Look at the game today, it’s so split in half. You have your outlier like Tampa, but those are rare. To me, teams are losing a lot of fans and MLB is losing a lot of fans.

“Manfred’s idea of adding more playoff teams, that’s not it. To me, it’s stop rewarding them for losing. Start rewarding teams for winning. You win, you get rewarded. Every time nowadays you sign a player and you have to give them a draft pick. No. Why? It enables teams to do more of that. They don’t want to give their draft picks away because that’s what they value more.”

Martinez certainly raises some good points. If Manfred wants to expand the playoffs, the league easily could have 100-plus win teams duking it out in the Wild Card. And if some new postseason ideas that have been thrown around come to life after 2021, when the current CBA expires, teams like the 2019 New York Mets and even Red Sox would have made the playoffs after mediocre seasons.

Of course, only time will tell how the new CBA will look. But if it’s anything like the current one, or adding more teams to the playoffs, we know Martinez won’t agree with it.