Houston Astros: The minor league touchables and untouchables in a trade
Francis Martes – Touchable
I’m not fully sold on Martes’ ability to be a starter in the major leagues. I wrote an article quite some time ago about the flaws in his game for a reference point, but suffice to say to me he seems more like a closer type with his lack of control.
While he is able to get out of jams, that profiles better as a reliever. If you are getting yourself into trouble regularly (Which Martes does because of how many walks he issues) as a starter, you’re going to be prone to the big inning.
However if you only pitch an inning a game, you can give up a couple baserunners and throw as many pitches as you like in an inning if it means you strike out the side in the process. With his lack of control he doesn’t seem like a starter that’s going to get past the fifth inning very often. He’ll run up high pitch counts early and even if he gets out with zero earned runs, starts like that still tax the bullpen.
To me (Francis) Martes will make a great future closer, but he’s worth sacrificing if it adds a top tier starting pitcher to our rotation
In his last three major league games, he came out of the bullpen and did a pretty good job. Four innings pitched, two earned runs, four hits, no walks and fives strikeouts. His two earned runs were both off home runs, so it’s not like there was a rally against him. Just a couple mistake pitches.
Now the four starts prior to those relief appearances where he opened the game on the mound, he never made it out of the sixth inning and only one of those four starts did he not give up multiple walks.
His issued 10 total walks in 17.2 inning pitched during that time frame. An average of over five walks per nine innings which is an unacceptable rate, regardless of if you’re a starter or a reliever.
To me Martes will make a great future closer, but he’s worth sacrificing if it adds a top tier starting pitcher to our rotation. He profiles to me like Neftali Feliz as he has mid-high 90’s heat with a power curve but a high level of inconsistency from start to start.
His ability to strike people out will serve him well to keep his ERA down even when he’s struggling to keep runners off the base paths. He is certainly a piece that a deal could center around and since he has major league experience now he should keep the cost of supplementary trade pieces down with his inclusion in any trade.
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