Is he a top prospect: Joseph Martinez

by lucecooler on Jun 9, 2008 11:56 AM PDT

Disclaimer: I am NOT a minor league guru. This post grew out of boredom and perusing Giants minor league stats.

So I'm checking out the AA (Defenders) stats and there's this Joseph Martinez starting pitcher dude who's rolling along with a 2.05 era, 43:17 K/BB, and 1.18 whip in 12 starts. Profile here: http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?n=Joseph%20Martinez&pos=P&sid=milb&t=p_pbp&pid=458155

I searched McC for posts/comments about him and all I could find (in last two years) was from Steve's minor lines summaries. It's a boring Monday so why not bequeth our sovereign verdict on his career destiny?

He tore up Augusta pretty good and maybe regressed slightly at San Jose last year (purely on ERA), but his K:BB was still 151:36 in 162 IP. Pretty nasty. Granted, for this year, the Eastern League is known as a pitcher's league... blah blah blah. It's just that I've heard bunches about Bumgarner, Alderson, Sosa, Tanner (sort of). But what about Mr. Martinez? His stats say "major league pitcher". I'll boldly predict that he will arrive in 2009 sometime when somebody's arm falls off. My sixth sense (WARNING: BS ALERT) thinks he could develop into a very solid 4 or 5 guy.

What say you, "expert"? How does he compare to our other prospects and what is his future?

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well

the first thing that jumps out at me from this year’s numbers is that lefties are hitting a gaudy .311 against him, and righties a modest .185. That’s bizarre. Future reliever, maybe?

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by delorean on Jun 9, 2008 12:04 PM PDT reply actions

Joseph Martinez

I would love to see him be a real prospect, but anyone who’s 25 years old and only in AA ball raises a red flag or two with me. If he’s from the DR he has had problems advancing, and if he was a HS kid it’s the same thing. If he was a college pitcher, he should be approaching a AAA promotion shortly or they still think he has to improve at lower minors before warranting a promotion.

Down in Front Meat!

by homerdrew415 on Jun 9, 2008 12:05 PM PDT reply actions

RE:

Yeah, he’s out of Boston College, just to clarify. He’s methodically climbing rung by rung so far. So, he hasn’t stalled out, but he’s not busting out the leap frog skills. I agree that I’d like to think he’s approaching a AAA promotion soon. I don’t know that there’s any very interesting starting arms in Fresno right now. Hen doesn’t count. So I would really like to see him testing out AAA bats in the near future. Certainly if he doesn’t pick up the pace he’ll be overtaken by his more esteemed peers. So his window of opportunity is 08/09.

by lucecooler on Jun 9, 2008 1:10 PM PDT up reply actions

Future

His future is that unless he has a fantastic arm/top level control/black mail pics of Brian Sabean), he’s not going to make the big leagues for a while.

Down in Front Meat!

by homerdrew415 on Jun 9, 2008 12:06 PM PDT reply actions

Only one gets to answer?

Top prospect no, but I think reliever or back end starter, sure. More likely to be RP.

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by BaronVonCurrentEvents on Jun 9, 2008 12:07 PM PDT reply actions

in a word: no

..but then the Giants have somewhere between 2 (Villalona, Bumgarner) and 0 ‘top prospects’ in their system. A more interesting question is whether he is a prospect at all. Most of those who toil in the minors never sniff a major-league roster spot. Prospect status is actually pretty impressive, all told.

While last year I might just as conlusively have said ‘not even a prospect’ because of his inconsistency, this year he has rediscovered the groundball tendency that had made him very slightly interesting in Augusta. The Eastern League has parks in which it is easier to throw ground balls, but Martinez currently leads the league in GB%, which isn’t too shabby, even if the rate he’s sporting isn’t all that high.

I like the relatively stingy walk totals, but before I got too high on him, I’d want to see him bring his K rate back up above 20% and continue to get ground balls. If he did, you could pencil him in as yet another interesting arm in the Giants system. If he doesn’t, however, the team has a lot of pitchers ahead of him in potential and performance.

by wcw on Jun 9, 2008 12:07 PM PDT reply actions

"top"

Yeah, “top” is just me being a good sensationalist (word?). Point taken: Is he a prospect. I guess I wonder, just purely based on stats (which, I know, is only a slice of the pie), I’m wondering which starting pitchers are currently ahead of him (assumption: no crazy single A straight to bigs action). Misch? Neither Palmer, Santos, or Sadowski are exactly taking the world by storm in Fresno. I guess my theory is that there is a one year (2 years tops) vacuum/window of opportunity before some of the talent in High/Low A starts overtaking him. I.e. this is a legit chance for him to sneak by the Palmer’s of the organization and get a whiff of the majors in that time.

by lucecooler on Jun 9, 2008 1:18 PM PDT up reply actions

I wonder if he is one of those under-the-radar type of prospects who achieves success at each level (see Brian Horwitz) and methodically climbs the organizational ladder to the bigs.

by wilriv21 on Jun 9, 2008 12:22 PM PDT reply actions

Ryan Jensen?

by mxmob33 on Jun 9, 2008 12:51 PM PDT reply actions

William Van Landingham?

Down in Front Meat!

by homerdrew415 on Jun 9, 2008 12:56 PM PDT up reply actions

I always wished he stuck it out and really tried to be a knuckleballer

but then I love me some knuckleball to distraction

by wcw on Jun 9, 2008 1:00 PM PDT up reply actions

If for nothing else but the throwback jersey!

Down in Front Meat!

by homerdrew415 on Jun 9, 2008 1:12 PM PDT up reply actions

ROY

Didn’t he “actually” get some ROY buzz? Barf….

by lucecooler on Jun 9, 2008 1:20 PM PDT up reply actions

He’s no top prospect, but I wouldn’t dismiss him too quickly as some might be/are. (I won’t get into the age thing AGAIN)

He’s got good control and has four mature, if not overwhelming, pitches. His ceiling is a #4 or #5 starter, but a good reliever is more likely (especially with his control).

Note: he’s handling the Northeast well, but he’s also used to it to a degree. He was drafted from Boston College.

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by BruteSentiment on Jun 9, 2008 12:52 PM PDT reply actions

Actual knowledge

Ah, here is someone with some extra knowledge (beyond my “wow, look at the pretty numbers”). Thanks for the info.

by lucecooler on Jun 9, 2008 1:21 PM PDT up reply actions

From what I remember seeing of Martinez last season in SJ is he has a great curve which gets a lot of strikeouts. Looking at his stats this year the first thing that stood out was the 25 R and 15 ER. So his defense is causing him to throw more pitches and induce more outs. Love the GB/FB ratio too.

by Cainer on Jun 9, 2008 1:42 PM PDT reply actions

shoddy defense

Yeah, I totally missed that. Is this the one instance we can say “that’s the hole left by Brian Bocock’s absence”?

by lucecooler on Jun 9, 2008 2:17 PM PDT up reply actions

Rememer all those posts about how it’s impossible to judge how Ishikawa/EME/whoever are doing in AA because Dodd destroys their stats? Apply those in reverse here.

by Evan on Jun 9, 2008 1:42 PM PDT reply actions

agreed

I just wonder what the multiplier is? A 2.00 ERA is still pretty nasty. What does that go to? A 3.00? 3.50? Still seems worth a AAA look…

by lucecooler on Jun 9, 2008 2:11 PM PDT up reply actions

If you look at his away lines, he’s still putting up a pretty decent line (albeit with small sample size concerns). AAA is the true test for Giants pitching prospects. Personally, I’ll echo a lot of other sentiments here and put my bet on RP/#5 Starter.

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by RougeGorrila on Jun 9, 2008 2:48 PM PDT up reply actions

Not a Top Prospect

But he seems to profile as a spot starter/long reliever. The role that Brad Hennessey once fulfilled effectively earlier in his career.

by Hobbes2d on Jun 9, 2008 7:00 PM PDT reply actions

Borderline

If you go back more than a couple of years, you will see I posted quite a few times on Joey. He’s from northern NJ, where I live, and happened to be giving pitching lessons in Clifton after his first season at Salem-Keizer when my son signed up for them. Needless to say, i was thrilled to have a Giants’ minor leaguer doing his best to help my boy over his insurmountable genetic liabilities. I chatted with him after every lesson and watched one of his workout sessions. He is a nice guy and smart - all along, his model as a pitcher has been Greg Maddux and his focus has been on control, location and changing speeds. He said his fastball tops out at 92 but he rarely tries to throw that hard. His slider looked like his best pitch at that time. He was hoping to jump from S-K to San Jose because of his age but that obviously didn’t work out. I don’t see any reason to change my assessment from several years ago - I’ll be slightly surprised if he makes it all the way to SF but if he does, it would be as a back end of the rotation, spot starter, long reliever type.

by NearestNorwich on Jun 9, 2008 7:43 PM PDT reply actions

his numbers dont really match the 2.05 ERA

its funny that some interpret the 25-15 r-er as terrible defense behind him, but it could be a case where he cant pick up his teammates after an error….i think his numbers are more in line with ERA of about 2.70 to 3.00, and whats the home ballpark worth to his stats? another
.3 to his ERA?

by slojoe on Jun 10, 2008 2:06 AM PDT reply actions