{"id":9402,"date":"2014-11-16T23:00:45","date_gmt":"2014-11-17T04:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/?p=9402"},"modified":"2014-11-16T23:00:45","modified_gmt":"2014-11-17T04:00:45","slug":"cubs-are-favorites-to-land-russell-martin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/2014\/11\/16\/cubs-are-favorites-to-land-russell-martin\/","title":{"rendered":"Cubs are favorites to land Russell Martin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure id=\"attachment_9114\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9114\" style=\"width: 594px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/files\/2014\/10\/russellmartin.jpg\" alt=\"Getty Images\" width=\"594\" height=\"403\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9114\" srcset=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/files\/2014\/10\/russellmartin.jpg 594w, http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/files\/2014\/10\/russellmartin-300x203.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 594px) 100vw, 594px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9114\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nThe Chicago Cubs are considered the favorites to land free agent catcher Russell Martin.<\/p>\n<p>Martin spent the last two seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates and while they would have linked to of re-signed him they have already made plans for next season in the form of <a href=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/2014\/11\/12\/pirates-acquire-catcher-francisco-cervelli-in-trade-with-yankees\/\" title=\"Pirates acquire catcher Francisco Cervelli in trade with Yankees\">Francisco Cervelli in a trade<\/a> with the New York Yankees.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\">\n<p>Executives involved in bidding for Russell Martin believe <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Cubs?src=hash\">#Cubs<\/a> are clear front-runner. Deal expected to be in four-year, $64M range.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Ken_Rosenthal\/status\/534154430376312832\">November 17, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Considered the best available catcher on the market, the 31-year-old Martin is expected to get a four year deal which could play him upwards of $15 million a season.<\/p>\n<p>If the Cubs are really interested in Martin the biggest question becomes what they do with with Welington Castillo.<br \/>\nWill they keep him or use him as a trade chip to upgrade their numerous other holes?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Chicago Cubs are considered the favorites to land free agent catcher Russell Martin. Martin spent the last two seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates and while they would have linked to of re-signed him they have already made plans for next season in the form of Francisco Cervelli in a trade with the New York [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[499],"tags":[],"coauthors":[6],"class_list":{"0":"post-9402","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9402"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9403,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9402\/revisions\/9403"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9402"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}