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I think the one thing I have learned the most from all the veteran guys is kinda like not to dwell on a loss or a bad day.
J. D. Martinez
I always talk about it like I'm a hitter first and if I'm doing things right and my body's in the right place, I drive the baseball.
People are always asking if I was mad at Houston. Honestly, I'm not. The truth of the matter is that when I was there, I didn't perform and they actually did me a favor by cutting me loose. They could have really held me there, not let me leave, bury me in Triple-A, put me behind some prospects and I would never even play.
Losing is incentivized now. You have 80 percent of the teams trying to lose.
I had to make baseball work. I threw myself into it.
Whenever you see me and I'm hitting ground ball after ground ball, you know I'm not feeling right.
Just kind of finding it, that's what Spring Training is for, to work on stuff and get ready.
I'd say the challenge of DHing is going to be learning the routine and to stay loose and stay warm and kind of be ready for it.
I love the game and I love to play. You have to admire fans who are the same way.
It's so hard to win a World Series.
Everyone here has a right to their own political beliefs and everybody has the right to stand by what they believe in. That's what makes us American.
I think that's one of the things you start learning from being hot and playing every day at the beginning, you know. The league, they made their adjustments and their change to you, the way they pitch you, the way they attack you, and just learning and learning from that and making the adjustments the very next at bat or the very next pitch.
All through Miami, the guys who grew up with me hitting at the place I hit, they all call me Flaco. Nobody calls me J.D. It's like, 'Hey, Flaco.'
Rodney Linares really stuck his neck out in Greenville to play me, because they had their prospects, guys who they had invested money in.
I really judge me on me.
Let's say I have a new respect for guys who come off the bench every day. That's not easy to do.
Obviously, this is a job, it's a grind, but it's what you love to do. It's your passion.
Learning how to slow the game down is the biggest thing.
It's fun coming to the ballpark when you're winning.
Starting in middle school, I would play on two or three baseball teams at the same time, because that's just how things worked in south Florida. I would practice six or seven days each week. I honestly don't know how my parents did it, but my dad always found a way to make it to each and every game.
I think I've grown over the years and learned about who I am and what I can do and what I can't do.
If a pitcher goes up there and he's throwing a ball and it's a breaking ball down and away or a fastball up and in, a perfect pitcher's pitch, and you're able to just foul it off and stay alive in the at-bat, just keep grinding, keep working through the at-bat and hoping for that mistake that he's going to make. And if he doesn't, then you walk.
I think about my journey sometimes.
Obviously, I'm sad to leave Houston. I love the fans and players and everyone here.
We want the fans to be in it, because when they're in it, it makes you kind of live up to it.
My whole life, I've felt like I've always had to prove myself. It's never been easy, as easy as others who are in my position have had it.
I'm always just grinding and figuring out what adjustment I need to make and how to tweak my swing to where I want it to be for that game and that pitcher.
To me, I just play baseball, whether I have the contract or not.
I've been on a bunch of teams in my career.
Everyone's path is their own.
I played street basketball for a while and wanted to play competitively, but I was so used to the street-style of game that I would have fouled out by the end of the first quarter.
Contrary to everyone's belief of 'J.D. is a launch-angle guy. He wants to get the ball in the air and this and that.' This is true, but you're not trying to force situations, trying to force things.
Detroit will always have a special place in my heart.
I'm going to tell you right now, no one is harder on me than me. The fact that fans sit there and boo me, I'm booing myself when I'm walking in.
You play 162 games so let's say 100 of them come down to the end where you see the game is out of reach one way or the other. I feel like the other 62 are close games so you're going to be into those at-bats. If you do that, that's 100 at-bats. That's almost a month worth of at-bats where you're not as focused as you might be in those 62.
I have so many memories of going fishing and camping as a kid, and my dad had season tickets to watch the Marlins - and that's where I fell in love with the game.
I told Pedro this story: I used to wear a freakin' Pedro Martinez jersey because it had 'Martinez' on the back.
You can't say it's good when guys out there are signing minor league deals and they would be big league players on 80 percent of the teams, but why would a team sign a player when you can pay dirt, and they're not going to win anyway?
I busted my butt in '15. Then in '16, I broke my arm running into a wall, so then I got scared of running into walls because I didn't want to get hurt again.
I've always loved hitting, and even as a kid, I always hit.
I love my story. I wouldn't change it. It gives it character. It's never been on a silver spoon.
I get to play what I dreamed about since I was a kid. So, on that end, I love it. But I also take pride in it.
Sometimes what we see, what's going on in front of us, isn't really what's happening.
That's one thing I learned from watching great hitters hit. A lot of hitters, they're ready to hit from pitch one.
You want to see the team that is in the playoffs.
You can ask every coach from Ron Gardenhire to Dave Clark, anyone who has seen me play, they don't know why they say I'm a bad defender.
My preparation and my routine are the foundations to my success.
Kids want to see relevant teams.
I want to be on a team that's got a chance. That's what's fun. That's what you play the game for.
The last thing I wanted to do was get buried in Triple-A behind prospects.
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