J.D. Martinez has played in the majors for 14 seasons on six teams. His baseball reputation revolves around hitting and around being a positive presence in clubhouses.
He knows strong groups, and he knows weak groups. He had plenty of reason to sour on the Mets through October, when he slumped and started just five of 13 postseason games. He did not.
“These guys are great. I had a great time here, and it’s been a fun year,” Martinez, then a pending free agent and now a full-fledged free agent, said in the losing clubhouse in Los Angeles after the deciding Game 6 of the NLCS. “How could you not want to come back after the year we had?
“The clubhouse is not full of egos. I’ve been in a lot of clubhouses — this clubhouse is different just because everybody was a family. It’s different.”
