Cristhian Martinez Minor League Statistics & History – Baseball-Reference.com.
Command-and-control righty. I’m not quite sure what’s going on with Martinez’s first name, or why he wasn’t signed (out of the Dominican by the Tigers) until he was 20. A late growth spurt, maybe? After a bit of rough introduction to the minor leagues in 2003, he pitched well in 2004. He was evidently hurt in 2005, pitching in only three games. (In fact, he either has been battling injuries or babied throughout his career; until a couple of years ago his number of starts per year was very limited.) He put up a 2.56 ERA in 2006, but as a 24-year-old pitching at the lowest levels, it’s not that impressive.
The Marlins took him from the Tigers in the minor league draft after that season, and he was mediocre in A-ball for the next couple of years. He finally had a good year in the higher levels in 2009, going 9-3 with a 2.94 ERA in AA, and earned a callup to the big club. Martinez had been pretty exclusively a starter in the minors, but the Marlins used him out of the pen, where in 15 games he put up a 5.13 ERA. His tendency was to give up runs in bunches, allowing four runs twice and three runs on another occasion, meaning that almost three-quarters of the 16 runs he allowed came in just three appearances.
The Braves took him off waivers from the Marlins in spring training. Following their lead, they made him a full-time reliever. His ERA in 12 appearances in Gwinnett is 5.04, even though his components (7.9 K/9, 1.4 BB/9, one hit an inning) are actually pretty good. He’s still basically fodder, a secondary long reliever.
His first name reminds me of Bethancourt’s last name.
So… Steve Phillips recently argued that the Nats should consider trading Strasburg for Oswalt–and then dug in to explain his reasoning. As someone who is consistently mortified by what passes for “expert” (or even “analyst”) in the sports world, I thought this was worth a mention.
http://mlb.fanhouse.com/2010/05/27/steve-phillips-hot-corner-explaining-strasburg-for-oswalt/
we can probably find work for Chavez and this man, but not Kimbrel?
#2 – well that is coming from the man who sucked as a GM and also found one of the well, not so pretty, people to cheat on his wife with
@2 He’s got a point in there, somewhere, but refuses to address (or is too dumb to think about) the contractual differences that make the idea ridiculous on it’s face.
Steve Phillips is trying, very hamfistedly, to explain TINSTAAPP: There Is No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect.
It’s not a completely insane argument in the abstract. Strasburg is an incredibly good pitching prospect, but he’s never played in the major leagues, and there are a million things that can go wrong for any young pitcher, so you have to discount his value by taking his risk into account.
It’s the specifics that make the argument stupid. Roy Oswalt is 32, he’s no longer an ace, and he’s owed $47 million from 2010 to 2012 — while Strasburg will be making something like $1 million during the same time period.
Phillips has a history of saying dumb things, and this is no exception. As on so many previous occasions, the argument he’s making could be correct — just not in this situation.
Is this an isthmus, Cristhian?
Yonder, lies the castle of my father, the Caliph!
his argument would be valid to trade Strasburg for Lincecum or something like that
Braves lineup at FLA, 5/27: Prado 4, Heyward 9, Jones 5, Hinske 7, Glaus 3, Cabrera 8, Escobar 6, Ross 2, Hudson 1
It’s like he’s still trying to justify Kazmir-for-Zambrano.
@6 – I agree with everything you said with the exception of ‘Roy Oswalt is 32, he’s no longer an ace’. Have you seen his numbers this year? 69IP, 69K, 17BB, 53H, 2.35 ERA, .209 BAVG, 1.01 WHIP. That is some major ace stuff there (better than Wainwright, but just barely – they are almost identical). In fact, I’d easily put him in the top 10 this year, and that’s while playing in a hitters’ ballpark.
When the Kazmir deal was done, I remember catching the end of the radio report as I was getting out of the car at Yankee Stadium. I walked into the game thinking, “Wow, Carlos Zambrano? Not bad.”
Of course, on the way home, when I heard that it was the wrong Zambrano, I burst out laughing & just thought, “Oh, the Mets…”
And as has been mentioned, let’s just hope Oswalt doesn’t end up in Philadelphia.
Actually, Oswalt is pitching better than Halladay to this point.
Joshua, he’s pitching brilliantly this year, but his ERA was over 4.00 last year, and his BABIP is .257 this year. He’s still probably a #1 starter, but I’m not sure that he’s one of the ten best pitchers in the league.
(Right now he’s 11th in FIP, behind Halladay, Wainwright, Lincecum, Ubaldo Jimenez, Josh Johnson, Tom Gorzelanny (!), Clayton Richard, Jaime Garcia, Anibal Sanchez, and Barry Zito. In fairness, he’s 5th in xFIP, behind Lincecum, Halladay, Haren, and Johnson.)
If Chipper is indeed coming off the books next year, we need to find a way to acquire Oswalt before someone in the NL does.
Assuming we can make the payroll work, what would it take to get Oswalt?
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Against righthanders, shouldn’t Conrad be getting the occassional start at 3B? I’m sorry, but you just can’t have your #3 hitter performing this way.
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What? No one liked “Yasser’s Virgins”?
Kind of hard to believe that he is 3-6 with those kind of numbers. Are the Astros really that bad?
@16 – with the pitchers we have coming up, we definately need to look at getting a bat first.
@15 – Forgive me, I don’t know about all the stats that are out there. Could you please explain FIP and xFIP? I’m trying to figure out how Halladay could be higher in anything when considering he gives up more H/9, has fewer K/9, and has a WHIP that is .09 higher (unless BB/9 are given a really high value).
@17 – Yes, yes they are.
Joshua, http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/statpages/glossary/
FIP and xFIP are basically component-centric. FIP just measures homers, strikeouts, and walks, and xFIP neutralizes home run rates to some extent. They’re definitely not be-all end-alls, but they are more predictive of future performance than ERA.
And as if on cue….
http://sportsradiointerviews.com/2010/05/27/chipper-jones-may-walk-away-from-20-million/
I didn’t give any thought into the ERA, which is why I said he is having a better year than Halladay despite having a higher ERA. All of his components appear to be better than Halladay with the exception of walks, which is really close. Is it possible that list doesn’t include Oswalt’s last start (he was absolutely dominant)?
Probably HR…
I don’t understand how xFIP became popular. It substitutes some measure HR/outfield flies for home runs. But though pitchers have some control over overall home run prevention they don’t have much ability to influence HR/outfield fies. I just use simple rules for DIPS: K/BB >2 is good, and the HR/G < 1 is good. The bigger the deviation the better/worse the pitcher is.
The only guys who could do something and are available this summer are Pena, Crawford and Werth.
Werth might not be a bad pickup.
Would the Phillies really trade Werth to a division rival? I seriously doubt it.
I was thinking Magglio Ordonez would be a good fit, but I know his contract situation is kind of a hang-up.
One of my friends who is a Yankees fan feels confident Werth will end up with his team. He doesn’t have any inside information, just that enormous sense of entitlement (not unearned, I’m afraid) that Yankees fans enjoy . . .
I get to see Magglio tomorrow night at Comerica. Once again, he’s mashing like a madman.
It’s Sheets vs. D-Train. There was a time when that would’ve been a top-shelf matchup. (During last year’s visit, I got Porcello vs. Jimenez.)
Now it’s just a high-end matchup: Oft-injured $10 M guy with a 5.00 ERA vs. really wild $12 M guy with a 5.00 ERA.
#27, my bad, still in football (or soccer if you like) thinking, I meant winter.
For what it’s worth, Dave Cameron engages Phillips’ argument in much the same reasoned way as others have above, particularly AAR: each point he makes is fine on its own, in the abstract, but even when leaving aside the finances the argument is preposterous once its applied to real-world situations.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/the-oswalt-strasburg-thing/
If Tampa actually lets Crawford leave I don’t see us being able to outbid the Yankees, Red Sox, etc. for that one.
Which is why I doubt seriously the Yankees will trade for Werth unless the situation is dire.
if chipper leaves, one’s gotta think the dan uggla talks will begin again.
In light of the Joe West-Mark Buehrle incident, I wrote about the silliness of the balk rule on Fangraphs today. (I even quoted a line Mac wrote a year ago: “Nearly all balks are randomly called by the umpires as far as I can tell, with the odd exception of a pitcher who falls down or drops the ball or something like that.”)
It just occurred to me, after seeing a DOB tidbit, that Señor Gomez may have been signed to babysit Yunel.
In the last thread, I said, “Teheran will NOT be in the majors next year.” Well, apparently Kevin Goldstein disagrees with me:
“Julio Teheran, RHP, Braves (High-A Myrtle Beach): 6 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 2 K. ERA is now 1.03 in nine starts across Low/High-A; 19-year-old could reach big leagues as early as late 2011.”
#32, Tampa are dropping $20m in payroll after this season. Both Pena and Crawford are pretty much gone.
That’s right, Chipper, I trashed you!
For Chipper, it was a hanging curve…just saying
Anyone else hear Hinske drop the f-bomb on the parabolic mic 3 times?
He definitely got his money’s worth too. At least you know he cares
Melky??
Chip: “The Florida Marlins are about 50-50 in the stolen base department. They’ve stolen 20 and been thrown out 10 times”
I wish I was making this up.
If Yunel could have gotten Melky over Ross’ fly ball was a run.
This stuff matters at the bottom of the order, when the pitcher is lurking.
Let’s hurry and get five innings in. This rain doesn’t look good.
Living in Florida, it is definitely nice to have a break from Chip, but the Florida guys are douche bags.
I’m not sure how they’re dressed tonight, but these are guys that frequently wear matching sweater vests.
Need I say more?
When you can hear the rain over the TV, it’s too hard.
So what, are they just going to wait for him to throw one to the backstop before they bring out the tarp?
Yeah really. It’s looked too hard for almost two innings.
It was starting to look like the end of The Fan
This is preposterous. They don’t want to send it to a rain delay for fear we might not come back out. (That alone should be a clue that you shouldn’t be playing baseball.) But these teams are in the same division, there’s going to be like 4 more trips down here in which to add a make-up.
Huddy gave it to Dana after the 4th. I would too. It’s not like he’s probably coming back anyway.
This should have gone to delay after the Braves finished hitting. It was when Yunel was at-bat that the rain started really pouring, and it just got harder from there.
We’re next down a week after the All Star game, so we could line Hudson up to pitch another 5 innings.
So…. who’s worse? Joe ‘The Cowboy’ West or Bill ‘The Mustache’ Hohn? (Poll question maybe?)
Bucknor.
Bill Hohn moved to the top of my list after the Red Sox series last year, but I did just find out today that West has a publicist, which is pretty strong ammo in and of itself.
West usually gets the calls right, he’s just a self-promoting so and so. Those balks he called the other day and the following ejections, while technically defensible, were a clear example of his ego and attempt to make himself into a “colorful character” in order to sell his dumbass CDs.
Ethan, trading 10 outs for 20 bases is about break even in the sense of harm vs good
CB Bucknor is just terrible at his job.
Bill Hohn is terrible at his job, and is also a very small, small man.
@58, I am sure that is exactly what Chip meant. I mean it’s not like he’s unfamiliar with Run Expectancy percentages.
Spike @ 55 is right. Bucknor.
58—There is absolutely no chance that Chip is aware of that fact.
The Braves website is crazy!
http://shop.mlb.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2587411&cp=1452343.1452606
The Braves believe in the Greater Fool theory, Smitty. After all, they managed to unload the real thing.
Stu @ 62,
I think we may have stumbled upon the answer here. So Chip’s actually extremely intelligent and has a deep and comprehensive knowledge about the workings of the game. However, he’s an extreme sociopath who just hates society in its entirety. So to fulfill his evil goals of bugging the crap out of everyone, he became a baseball announcer, and with graceful talent he walks the line between annoying those who listen to broadcasts and still showing enough knowledge and zest to maintain his job as an announcer. He’s perfect. I mean, consider the facts:
a) He does all he can to make people’s ears bleed on national television- the perfect gig for a sociopath!
b) To show that little knowledge about baseball…. you have to know everything about the game to make sure that you can avoid any ‘gaffes’. It’s akin to getting a 0 on an extremely large and difficult multiple choice test- to do so, you have to know the correct answers so that you purposefully get everything wrong.
He’s amazing!
If Chip actually ever did try explain it as Paul did, I’m pretty sure my head would explode. It’s hurting now from just the concept.
Moylan in the 5th? I guess they do go righty 3-4-5-6, but Moylan’s ROLE is the 7th. Something must be up.
EDIT: 65- I think you give Chip far too much credit. I’d lean more to the statistical anomaly of an idiot just getting a zero on the test.
bad night for the umpires
Fear. The. Prado.
Wow. It’s a surprise when Heyward doesn’t come through
A good fastball like that one makes Chipper look real old.
Hey, Joe West has a website
http://www.cowboyjoewest.com/
We should forward all of our gripes about umpires to him. It could be a lot of fun.
Zombie Chipper does what zombies do best.
But pitchers are still petrified of him. Nobody has seen the memo.
Wow, he still uses AOL.
umpirejoewest@aol.com
@71: *giggle* Also, someone should tell “Cowboy Joe” that “Blue Cowboy” sounds like the name of a gay porn.
Are you kidding? He probably just opened his account.
@73, Well, naturally. He’ll eat their brains.
Nice to see Chipper partying like it’s 1999.
I enjoy watching Venters. It might be the high socks.
That 1.00 ERA probably helps.
Phils are getting shutout again.
Braves are just 1 1/2 games back if we win and the Phils lose.
Who is faster: Glaus, McCann, Sid Bream, Damon Berryhill or the corpse of Babe Ruth?
Welcome to the Medoza Line Yunel!
YUNEL! Maybe he’s snapping out of it.
Smitty, the corpse. Definitely. Babe did steal over 100 bases, after all.
@73, wasn’t he two for two with a double just before the walk? Might have been a different memo for that situation.
lol…SportSouth’s microphones caught someone saying, “Hey, Escobar? How’s that hitting streak? One game?”
Hmm. I figured Escobar would’ve made it to third on that one. Shame, too, ’cause he probably scores on Ross’s flyout. Either way, it’s good to see him hitting the ball hard. 🙂
O’Flaherty’s in trouble, the tying runs are on base, so let’s bring in Chavez!
jesse chavez next folks…but yet Kimbrel cant find innings here
Wouldn’t Saito have made more sense here?
nevermind its Saito
This is why you don’t use Moylan in the 5th, Bobby!
@91: So GameCast got it wrong? It has Chavez coming in.
Bobby’s middle name is “Joseph”
I move that we refer to him from now on as “Bobby Joe”
@82 Smitty, Berryhill was about the slowest player I’ve ever seen. I believe if some money was on the line Glaus could outrun McCann, so the answer to your question, may just unbelievably be Bream. At least he had enough speed to beat Bonds throw.
93 – yep
Chip Caray makes me wanna puke.
what in the world has happened to the phils offense?
Has anything happened since the pitching change? GameCast seems to have fallen asleep.
Okay, Saito’s now relieved O’Flaherty twice and Chavez has once. Gameday’s bugs strike again.
Edit: Fortunately, the good Saito also strikes, and we’re out of the jam.
Saito struck everyone out. It’s still 5-3.
Prado singles again to start the eighth.
Ah, looks like it’s caught up. Saito struck out Uggla and Ross? Nice.
What was that thing about Diaz and CB Buckner that Joe just referenced?
Yunel….
“He was the best player on the team,” Escobar said through an interpreter. “A lot of talent with the bat.”
Gomez started in center field on the 2000 Cuban Olympic team in Sydney. Escobar compared him to Boston left fielder Jacoby Ellsbury, a .295 hitter in his fourth season with the Red Sox.
Here’s to hoping that Yunel is a good scout
Heyward is having another one of his 20 min at bats.
who was the ump that Estrada blew up on?
Just an awesome at bat right there.
Ho hum AB by J Hey.
Chipper has 1,377 more walks than Frenchy
I can’t believe Chipper has more walks than Aaron or Mathews
Fun fact: Dan Meyer has 4 errors in 11 career fielding chances. Bunt, Hinske!
That is the first good defensive play in Ugla’s life
That is such a big run, i find the dp trade….barely acceptable.
By the way, I thought Cox was correct in using Moylan in the fifth. Middle of the lineup, all right handed hitters, and we’ll be emptying the bullpen anyway. That was the highest Moylan-leveraged situation possible.
Melky’s simulating usefulness. I’m still having trouble believing it.
Melky may be showing Nate the bench.
Is it possible that our next manager doesn’t know he has other pitchers in the bullpen?
Well we’ve used six already and headed for a seventh, so they must know most of them.
Meyer’s fifth walk of the inning. The anti-Frenchy.
Wow….Meyer really sucks.
Haha. Bobby doesn’t think he can throw 3 out of 7 pitches for strikes. 🙂
fredi isnt doing Meyer any favors here…he may be getting released tomorrow
yes Joe, Saito is just like Ichiro with the bat
Saito works the count better than Frenchy
Saito got his bat on two pitches. Honor has been served.
That was borderline irresponsible by Fredi, wasn’t it?
122—He was joking.
I know…Chip wasnt sure though
if the score holds, the official scorer is gonna have to pick the winning pitcher based on whom he thought was most effective (hudson of course is ineligible.) at this point, i’d have to say saito?
@128, I would have to think so.
I’d agree if Saito gets through the 8th.
im guessing Moylan will get the win
How close was J-Hey’s flyout in the 9th? On GameCast it looked like it was up against the wall.
just shy of the track
Wagner. Again. With a five-run lead.
You knew Bobby was going to do this, but it doesn’t make it any less annoying
no off days for about three weeks also
And Moylan gets the win.
Heyward caught it off the end of the bat.
Bobby manages his bullpen based on both how important the game is and, less importantly, how big the lead is. That’s why he always kills his relievers.
Wag should be glad that he is retiring!!!
Recapped.