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He's horrible in the field and doesn't hit righties or lefties well. And he's old. I don't get it.

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=7358&position=2B/OF

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=martimi02&year=2016&t=b

LOL, my bad! EDWIN Encarnacion.

He can play any position. He's probably just fielding insurance. Seeing as how Diaz isn't a very good fielder at this point, my guess is they bring Martinez in late innings to replace him if we have a lead.

But he's not a good fielder.

April 3 @ Texas, 7:05 Kluber vs. Darvish
April 4 @ Texas, 8:05PM, Carrasco vs. Perez
April 5 @ Texas, 8:05PM,Salazar vs. Hamels

Looks like he has 15 errors in his career in nearly 1300 innings. His fielding percentage across all positions is .967, which is respectable. He's not going to be Lindor, but at least he can play any position if needed.

Errors and fielding percentage are not a good measure of how good a fielder is, the link to his Fangraphs page above is a better view of how well Martinez plays in the field.

He's above average in right and left field (actually pretty good), but bad everywhere else.

One of the reason Francona mentioned keeping Martinez was due to his versatility. Is he good? No. He likely won't hurt you too bad defensively, however.

Another contributing and likely larger factor is that by keeping Martinez on the Opening Day roster it allows the Indians to send Urshela and Erik Gonzalez back down to AAA where they can play and get at-bats everyday rather than waste away on the bench. At 34, Martinez sitting on the bench for long stretches does not impact his career. He already is who he is.

The Indians are well known for trying to keep their young players under control for as long as possible, to get an extra year on the back end of their first contract. That's why our rookies are at a disadvantage in ROY considerations; they're usually not called up until mid-June or later, allowing another year on them before their "Free Agent timer" starts. They must think Yandy Diaz is a better "use early" option than either Erik Gonzalez or Ronnie Rodriguez, both middle infielders. I don't know, but I'm guessing Yandy Diaz's spring made this an easy decision. They could have left Ramirez at 3rd, but Diaz's bat this spring made him harder to cut than Gonzalez or Rodriguez, either of whom could have played 2nd.

It's time gang.

It ain't the off-season nomore.

Who'll start us off?

Refs?

And we have Brantley officially back!

Excellent news that he has been able to stay healthy through Spring. I'm still cautiously optimistic. Brantley has put in a tremendous out of work and rehab.

Can't wait for the game tomorrow night.

Side note, congrats to Yandy Diaz for forcing his way on to the Opening Day roster with a tremendous Spring training at the plate.

Go Tribe!

Zack Meisel Verified account @ZackMeisel
Indians sign catcher Roberto Perez to a four-year contract extension that includes team options for 2021 and 2022

Deal worth at least $9M. Per source:
$500K bonus
2017: $550K
2018: $1.5M
2019: $2.5M
2020: $3.5M
2021: $5.5M opt
2022: $7M opt
Buyout: $450K

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Nice deal weather he stays long term or we need to trade him in a year or two !