Knee Trouble Again

Coming off the best season of his career -- in a walk year -- the Tigers re-signed Victor Martinez to a four-year/$68-million contract last fall. Despite being 36 and just two years removed from a serious knee injury that cost him all of 2012, Detroit didn't want to risk losing the player that had become their best all-around hitter. Yesterday's news had to make GM Dave Dombrowski shudder. In what they hope is a less-serious rerun of his previous injury, Martinez tore the medial meniscus in his left knee during a workout last week -- and will undergo surgery next week. While we're hearing this time it will only cost him two months -- likely shelving him for all of spring training and possibly the start of the regular season -- it does question the wisdom of signing a player, even a gifted one, to a multi-year contract when they're on the other side of 35.
Martinez doesn't catch much these days. And he was never a speedster. But one has to wonder how a knee that's had two operations in three years will hold up over the four years Victor has been guaranteed. I know Detroit's 80-something owner Mike Ilich wants to "go for it all" and win a title while he's around to enjoy it. But does a pricey, brittle and aging Victor Martinez really move him closer to that goal?

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