FORT MYERS, Fla. — Entering his final year under contract with the Red Sox, J.D. Martinez said Monday he’d like to spend the rest of his career in Boston.

“I would love it,” he said. “I’ve expressed where I stand with the team and I would love to finish my career here. That isn’t up to me, really.”

Martinez, 34, is in the final year of a five-year, $110-million deal he signed with former Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski.

Since joining the Sox, Martinez has hit .297 with 114 homers and a .917 OPS, which ranks fifth among all players with at least 2,000 plate appearances in that span. Only Juan Soto, Mookie Betts, Bryce Harper and Freddie Freeman have done better.

Martinez could’ve opted out of his contract numerous times, but chose to stay in Boston.

“I think I made the right decision and I’m excited to be here,” he said. “I think this team has a chance to win again and that’s what I want to do — I want to win.”

He said he’d like to stay in Boston and would be open to extension talks during spring training.

“I’m fine either way,” he said. “My mindset is I’m going to be a free agent… I mean, would we welcome (an extension)? Yeah, I’ve always welcomed it — my door is open, my phone has always been open. But I think once the season starts, it’s one of those things where I’m going to want to be locked in.”

Adding the universal designated hitter will create better opportunity for Martinez in the final years of his career.

“I think it’s good for baseball all the way around,” he said. “Obviously I’m biased to it but I’ve been saying it… I think now it’s going to kind of level the playing field for pitchers, hitters, everyone. Now you’ll be able to judge a hitter, judge a pitcher strictly off their numbers and not the league they’re playing in.”

Martinez noticed free agent DH Nelson Cruz was just guaranteed $15 million by the Nationals at 42 years old.

“I tell him every time I see him, ‘Nelson, you’re my hero,'” Martinez said. “It’s tough. It’s tough on your body. It’s tough on your time. You know, one thing you can never get back in life is time. So it’s one of those things where I’d love to stick around. Obviously, I’m not ready yet, but to play into my 40s, that’s kind of wild.
“You know, everyone loves talking about Tom Brady and he’s the best and he’s the GOAT, but what Nelson is doing right now is I think very impressive, too.”

PITCHERS GARRETT Whitlock and Tanner Houck are both being stretched out this spring, Manager Alex Cora told reporters.

But chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said he doesn’t expect Whitlock to fit into a typical starting pitcher mold, instead implying he could be in a new-age starting pitcher role that adapts based on his health and effectiveness.

“If we try to fit somebody cookie-cutter style into some sort of abstract role, we do them a disservice,” he said. “So the way we’re looking at it right now, especially with what he’s been through medically, work-load-wise last year, we do want to give him a chance to pitch more innings for us, just to do it in the right way, do it responsibly, not get too focused on what we call the role, but give him a chance to impact us as much as possible in a way that takes care of him.”

Whitlock, a Rule 5 pick from the Yankees last year, threw 73 1/3 innings with a 1.96 ERA for the Sox last year. He was dominant in the postseason, too, when there were questions of whether or not he’d be a starter in 2022.

Houck threw 69 innings with a 3.52 ERA while being optioned back-and-forth to Triple-A Worcester throughout the season. Starting in 2022, MLB capped the number of times a player can be optioned in a single season (five).

AFTER THE most challenging year of his career, Matt Barnes arrived at Red Sox camp this spring with renewed hope.

Asked if he thought it was realistic for him to be the closer after finishing the season with a 6.48 ERA in the second half and being left off the original postseason roster, Barnes responded with an emphatic “yes.”

He said he might’ve put too much pressure on himself to be the closer last year but takes a lot of pride in that job.

“It was kind of crazy,” he said. “Obviously the first half of the season went really well. I think in the second half, I went through a stretch where I was in a lot of games, kind of got tired, and when you get tired you start trying to re-create what you had had previously. And then you kind of create bad habits.

“So obviously creating bad habits, I didn’t perform well and then got COVID and then was sitting down for 10 days, two weeks, didn’t get to pitch in the game, come back, and then we only have a couple of weeks before the postseason.”

Barnes had an electric first half in which he had a 2.61 ERA with 19 saves and was named an All-Star for the first time in his career. The Sox signed him to a two-year contract extension worth at least $18.75 million before he fell apart in the second half.

“It was tough going from the level I was at to not even making the postseason roster originally,” he said. “But I think in everything we do, you don’t get to improve unless you experience tough times. You don’t improve by being great all the time. You don’t learn anything that way.”

SOME PLAYERS who are unvaccinated could miss games this year.

If laws in Canada hold up, the Sox would not be able to use their unvaccinated players for games in Toronto. Though the rules could change, Bloom said, “it should go without saying that anything that could keep our players off the field is going to concern us. We have been and continue to be staunch advocates of vaccination.”

LEFTY JAMES Paxton, who signed a one-year, $10-million contract with the Sox this year, was seen throwing on Monday, but remains far away from a comeback after undergoing Tommy John surgery last April.

“Based on the timing, we’re looking more at the second half of the year,” Bloom said. “But nothing has changed with that. Really happy with that.”

RAFAEL DEVERS remains unsigned as he enters the season eligible for salary arbitration. He’ll be eligible for arbitration again in 2023 before he can hit free agency.

“Nothing’s changed with how we feel about him,” Bloom said. “He’s a cornerstone player for us and we hope he’s here for a long time.”