The Dodgers officially signed designated hitter JD Martinez on Thursday and posted a cool hype video to celebrate the occasion.
The Dodgers finally made official their signing of designated hitter JD Martinez on Thursday, nearly two weeks since they agreed to terms with him. There were never any big concerns — it was Christmas, after all — but it’s good to finally have it official.
To celebrate Martinez’s signing, L.A.’s social media team put together a highlight video with an appropriate caption.
JD doesn’t actually stand for “Just Dingers” — it’s Julio Daniel, if you must know — but it might as well. Martinez has 282 career homers in his 12-year career and has averaged 36 homers per 162 games since making a career-altering swing change prior to the 2014 season. His .547 slugging percentage since 2014 is the seventh-highest in baseball among players with at least 1,000 plate appearances, and third-highest among players who played that entire time, trailing only Mike Trout and Nolan Arenado.
The Dodgers are also intimately familiar with Just Dingers, as he had a four-homer game against them while playing for the Diamondbacks in 2017. Martinez homered off Rich Hill, Wilmer Font, Pedro Baez, and Josh Fields in that September game that came in the middle of L.A.s terrible 1-16 stretch. (Who would have thought that, of the four pitchers to allow homers to him, the 37-year-old Hill would be the only one still in the big leagues six years later, not the three who were 27, 29, and 31 years old.)
Martinez had a relatively down year in 2022, but L.A. is hoping he can become Just Dingers again for them in 2023.
