Once a Blue Jays target for his bat, Victor Martinez hired to share his wisdom

DUNEDIN, Fla. -- The notion of taking a run at Victor Martinez in free agency gained traction within the Toronto Blue Jays in October 2014, as the off-season market neared an opening.

The front office viewed the respected veteran slugger as an ideal fit between Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion in the lineup, while also providing a dynamic and transformative clubhouse presence to a team in need of one.

Still, even as they made their pitch, they knew their odds of luring Martinez away from the Detroit Tigers were low and before long he re-signed for $68 million over four years. The Blue Jays then went in a different direction, signing Russell Martin and trading for Josh Donaldson.

Always have options and alternatives.

“The thing was I already spent four years there (in Detroit) and the team was still ready to win,” Martinez recalled of his decision. “Here it was a team that was ready to win, too. So it was just the balance that I knew how everything is (in Detroit). It wasn't because I didn't like this team.”

The Blue Jays didn’t get him then, but they do have him now, as nearly nine years after that pursuit the 44-year-old from Venezuela recently joined the club as a special assistant to baseball operations. The hiring reunites Martinez with club president and CEO Mark Shapiro and general manager Ross Atkins, who were with him from his 1996 signing as an amateur free agent in Cleveland to his deadline day 2009 trade to the Boston Red Sox.

While then-GM Alex Anthopoulos sought him for his bat, the Blue Jays now want him for his brain, a database of hitting knowledge and wisdom players can tap into in the clubhouse or by the batting cage. Along with the hiring of Don Mattingly as bench coach, the rehiring of Paul Quantrill as a special assistant to baseball operations, and plans for Encarnacion and Pat Hentgen to join camp as guest coaches next month as they explore larger roles with the club, Martinez is the kind of been-there-done-that sounding board the team didn’t have last year.

He'll be involved throughout the organization, including the major-league team, available to talk hitting, approach or anything else players want to ask him.

“Vic’s passion for baseball and winning is elite and infectious, his experiences and accomplishments speak for themselves and his reputation as a teammate is well renowned,” said Atkins. “We’re excited for him to get to know our staff and players, and for them to get to know him. We’re confident that we will learn a great deal from him in the years ahead and that our players and staff will benefit from having him around.”

For the moment, Martinez is making a point of treading lightly.

During practice Thursday morning, for instance, he chatted at length with Santiago Espinal and Cavan Biggio between their rounds in the cage, kibitzed with the coaches and watched intently as other hitters took their swings.

“I'm just getting my feet wet,” he said. “I'm watching, looking around and there's going to be plenty of time. Those kids are really good. What they're doing here is no secret. They've been one the best offences for the last two years, so they have been doing something right. I always say if something is working, don’t try to fix it.”

That much was reinforced during his 8,166 plate appearances in 1,973 big-league games over 16 seasons, experience he took with him when he retired as a player following the 2018 season.

Once he left, Shapiro let him know that if and when he was ready to work, the Blue Jays would have a place for him. Martinez spent some time at home with his young family, but this year, “I thought I was ready to get started.”

Shapiro “always felt like (Martinez) has so much to offer the game” and that their friendship endured after the gutting 2009 trade from Cleveland to Boston underlines the strength of their bond.

Breaking news of the deal, which returned Justin Masterson, Nick Hagadone and Bryan Price, “was one of the more emotional moments of my career as an executive,” said Shapiro and also left his son Caden, then seven, mad at his dad because he and Martinez were especially close.

When Cleveland faced the Red Sox later that year, Martinez invited Caden to the Red Sox clubhouse and gave him a jersey that on Halloween made for a uniquely memorable costume.

“I'm walking him around Chagrin Falls, Ohio, in a full Red Sox uni,” Shapiro remembered. “So we go to the first door, knocks on the door and he's like, ‘Trick or Treat.’ And the woman goes, ‘Oh, cute, who are you?’ He goes, ‘I'm Victor Martinez and that's the guy that traded him.’ I had to endure that for an entire night, him happily telling people, this is the guy who traded Victor Martinez.”

Caden, now a sophomore outfielder at Princeton, still wears No. 41 because of Martinez, who would take him and son Victor Jose out to the field for early batting practice, up near the wall “so they can hit homers.”

“We got really close. Mark told me the story (about Caden on Halloween) but for sure he wasn't more sad than me,” said Martinez. “That was a sad day.”

So Shapiro deserved it for trading him?

“Actually, you know what? I appreciate that,” said Martinez. “He had a chance to send me to different teams and he sent me to one of the best teams. It was the best experience I had in the big-leagues playing for the Red Sox.”

Maybe if his free agency had played out differently back in the fall of 2014, he’d be saying that about the Blue Jays now. But a path he didn’t take then has brought him back to this road now.

“It’s just funny because I’m coming here with Mark and Ross, the people that gave me a chance to start my career,” said Martinez. “That makes it more special. I did have a meeting (in 2014) with the GM but it didn't work. I'm extremely happy to be here with them and just be a little bit of help for the players.”