San Francisco Giants: The Eddy Julio Martinez Saga Continues
After a disappointing end to the 2015 season, the San Francisco Giants received their first glimmer of sunshine in the offseason earlier this week. The Giants had reportedly come to terms with one of the top international free agents on the market, 20-year-old outfielder Eddy Julio Martinez.
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By signing the talented young Cuban, the Giants had seemingly found their center field of the future, as Martinez has been considered the type of player a team can build around. With Angel Pagan entering the twilight of his career, and the final year of his contract with the Giants, the team might have found the guy who could take the position and hold on to it for years down the road.
Those good thoughts were put out to pasture when the deal fell apart. The initial deal, worth $2.5 million, was not suitable enough for Martinez, so it was turned down, and his business taken elsewhere. After the agreement with the Giants fell through, the Chicago Cubs swooped in, signing the potential superstar to a $3 million dollar deal to make him part of the Cubs’ growing contingent of budding stars.
But wait, there’s more! Martinez, apparently, has not put the ink on the contract for the Cubs. In a recent interview on Mercury News’ Tim Kawakami’s “The TK Show“, Giants’ general manager Bobby Evans revealed that he is still in contact with Martinez’s representatives, who the Giants are familiar with. According to Andrew Baggarly, Martinez is represented by Rick Thurman of Beverly Hills Sports Council, who is also Tim Lincecum‘s agent.
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As if that wasn’t enough of a twist, Evans alluded to the fact that there may be more twists to come. Is M. Night Shyamalan writing this script?
Evans went into a little more detail, but didn’t reveal all that much when he said there’s “probably going to be a great story here in the near future”. That would make one think that there are some weird details that haven’t been made public yet that would make it such a great story.
Kawakami would go on to ask Evans straight up if the Giants still have a shot at bringing Martinez into the organization. Evans response: “I want to be careful not to be too presumptuous, but yeah, I think there’s still that chance.” So after seemingly losing out on a highly-touted prospect to a team full of highly-touted prospects, the lowly Giants’ farm system could still add this huge piece.
At this point, the runaround is becoming a bit tiresome. If things keep going at this rate, the next step in this scenario is locking Martinez inside a house and keeping him away from Evans, much like the Los Angeles Clippers did to DeAndre Jordan to keep him away from Dallas Mavericks’ owner Mark Cuban this past summer.
If the Giants are destined to finish second in this bizarre affair, it will be a familiar feeling for the guys in orange and black. Last offseason, the Giants fell short in their pursuit of Jon Lester, one of the biggest pitching names on the market, prompting Evans (the assistant general manager at the time) to famously say “we did not receive a rose”. The Giants also missed out on a few international free agents, including infielder Yoan Moncada, pitcher Yoan Lopez, and third baseman/outfielder Yasmany Tomas.
The Giants have to be hoping they don’t add Martinez’s name to this less-than-dubious list.