Detroit Tigers Martinez has torn his meniscus

Oct 5, 2014; Detroit, MI, USA; Detroit Tigers designated hitter Victor Martinez (41) celebrates after scoring against the Baltimore Orioles during game three of the 2014 ALDS baseball playoff game at Comerica Park. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

The Detroit Tigers offseason was coming to a close and nothing big had happened since Max Scherzer signed with the Washington Nationals. Yet, just 15 days before pitchers and catchers are supposed to start reporting news broke that Designated hitter Victor Martinez has torn his left medial meniscus.

The Tigers tweeted their statement on the injury.

There is no timetable for Martinez’s return. However with some research on meniscus tears after you have the surgery to fix the tear, you are going to be down at least four weeks just to recover from the surgery and all of that stuff. According to WebMD, yes I used this site, however the site says that you won’t return to “heavy stresses, such as running and squats, should be postponed for some months.” So there is a good chance that Martinez will not be ready for the start of the season.

It also depends on the type of tear he has. It could be a minimal one that may not take as much time to heal, or it could be this terrible tear that could take months on end to heal from. If anything, Martinez will be down for at least a while.

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This knee injury is the second knee injury for Martinez since he has been in Detroit. In 2012 Martinez tore his ACL and was out the entire season. The worrisome part however is, this meniscus tear is happened in the same knee that he tore his ACL in. While that may have happened three seasons ago, it still happened and that is a lot of stress for your knee to go through.

Martinez however, probably gets some of the best medical doctors to have his surgeries done by, so the healing of the knee as a whole more than likely went well. If anything it didn’t seem to hurt him as much when he returned. In fact last season was one of his best as a Detroit Tiger.

Martinez knocked in 103 RBIs and clocked 32 home runs all while hitting a cool .335 average. He was a spark in the offense for the team and made the batting order fairly scary. He finished second in the MVP race behind Los Angeles Angels Mike Trout.

However if anything can be taken away from this injury, it is that the trade for Yoenis Cespedes was a very good trade. Yes the team loses the bat of Martinez, but now Miguel Cabrera isn’t left as the only really big bat they have. As a fan I’m very thankful now that, that trade went down.

When Martinez went down in 2012, Tigers General Manager Dave Dombrowski went out and signed Prince Fielder to a nine-year $214 million dollar contract. The contract at the time seemed a little long and a lot of money, but it was Prince Fielder and he was this big bat that the team was trying to replace while Martinez was gone.

Well know it is the 2015 season and Fielder isn’t with the team, in fact he was traded to Texas for Ian Kinsler back in the 2013 off-season after his bat went very cold in the postseason. This time with Martinez, there really doesn’t seem to be a big urgency to get a bat to replace him. Someone has to, but I don’t see the team going out and making a crazy sign like they did with Fielder.

So let us know what you think? Do the Tigers need to go find a big bat to replace Martinez? Let us know below.