ST. LOUIS (AP) \u2014 Six-time All-Star J.D. Martinez is joining the New York Mets as a special assistant to baseball operations.<\/p>\n
The 38-year-old Martinez last played in 2024 for the Mets, the final season of his 14-year career with six teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody saw what he meant to the team in 2024 when he first came out, not only on the field, but off the field,\u201d Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. \u201cGreat guy in the clubhouse. He\u2019s just super consistent, very knowledgeable and a very positive guy that\u2019s won a World Series, being in the playoffs. I think overall, huge, huge addition. I was super excited when I found out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mendoza envisions Martinez\u2019s role as being similar to that of Carlos Beltran, another former Mets player who was hired as a special assistant to the general manager in 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only with the position players, but with the pitchers,\u201d Mendoza said. \u201cYou know, there\u2019s so much information. The value of having pitchers talking to a hall of famer in Carlos Beltran and now a guy like J.D. Martinez, in the mind and everything that they bring to the table. So that\u2019s how we see it moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mendoza said talks with Martinez about the position started in spring training.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s just like the two parties needing to come together, you know, and having J.D. to be willing to do it,\u201d Mendoza said. \u201cI mean, he\u2019s having a pretty good life right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martinez batted .283 and had 331 home runs in 6,512 at-bats over 1,642 career games for Houston, Detroit, Arizona, Boston, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Mets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. LOUIS (AP) \u2014 Six-time All-Star J.D. Martinez is joining the New York Mets as a special assistant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":577231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,173216,54372,283135,283134,591,146002,145996,283136,269749,269750,85],"class_list":["post-577230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-carlos-beltran","tag-carlos-mendoza","tag-j-d-martinez","tag-mets-jd-martinez","tag-mlb","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-40800-ap-new-jersey-sports-only","tag-product-40802-ap-new-york-city-sports-only","tag-product-40803-ap-new-york-state-sports-only","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}