So far, so good

I was pumped about this trade when it happened Friday but I was in Baltimore so I couldn't really blog about it. My recap of the trip to Baltimore will be posted later this week, so stay tuned for that. Anyway...

After acquiring Victor Martinez from the Indians on Friday before the trade deadline, he has only gone 6 for 11 with 2 runs and 5 RBIs in 2 games. I'm okay with that. A lot of people were hoping to get Roy Halladay or Adrian Gonzalez more than V-Mart and pretty much considered him an afterthought or a fall back trade option. I was in the "Victor Martinez is just as important, if not more important, than the other two guys" camp. So far, so good. Then again, it has only been two games.

But let's take a look at this from a more realistic perspective. Not only does V-Mart provide us with a huge offensive upgrade, but he provides it to us at a position that hasn't really produced shit for us for the past few years (read: V-Tek). Also, I love the fact that he can play both catcher and 1B so that just gives us that much more lineup flexibility. Based on his 162 game averages, V-Mart should be a 20 homer, 100 RBI guy for us. That is solid, especially if that production is coming from behind the plate.

On the defensive side, while it's true that Varitek is one of the best (if not THE best) signal callers in the game, it is clear that his time is coming to an end. I can't really speak to how well Victor Martinez's signal calling/game management skills are at this point, but he does boast a career .994 fielding percentage. Both V-Mart and V-Tek have thrown out a career 24% of would be base stealers, which I'm not sure is a very good percentage, but that stat is misleading anyway since it depends on your pitchers as well.

One other thing I'm really pumped about is the fact that V-Mart is from Venezuela and not the Dominican Republic (DR) because this means he only "possibly" has taken performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) versus being from the DR where it is almost guaranteed at this point.

In conclusion, I loved the trade when it happened, and I still love it now. However, it remains to be seen how this pans out. As far as V-Tek is concerned, he will always be the man and Red Sox Nation will forever be in debt for his service, but the clock is ticking and his time is almost up. I'm pretty sure he's aware of that. Victor Martinez, provided that we sign him to an extension, can provide us with 5 more years of solid production while Theo and his crew spends some time restocking the farm with catching prospects since that is clearly our biggest weakness. Solid trade.