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Victor Martinez is close to signing a four year contract to stay with the Detroit Tigers, according to Ken Rosenthal on Twitter. A four year deal would lock up Martinez for his age 36-39 seasons.
Martinez rebounded from a missed 2012 campaign and a down 2013 season with his best offensive year in 2014, putting up a 974 OPS and a 168 OPS+ -- his previous career highs were 912 and 134.
Martinez has gotten some games at first base the past couple of years, and even caught a few innings, but he's primarily a DH at this point in his career. His re-upping with the Tigers could impact the Rangers' pursuit for a DH...had Martinez left, one would think that Torii Hunter, who played right field last year for Detroit, would have been their next option for their DH job. With Hunter's defense now to the point where he's best suited for a DH role, Martinez re-signing would seem to make Hunter less likely to return to Detroit, and thus open the door for the Rangers -- who have pursued him the previous couple of times he hit the free agent market -- to make a play for him.
UPDATE -- the deal is reportedly for close to $70M.
