Okay I just got back from Frisco. My GF had to go back to the office so I felt bad making her stay too late — I left in the middle of the 6th. I just now saw Kinsler’s post about Scheppers. I sure hope he’s wrong — I’m going to kick myself if he comes in. I figured that if he were going to follow MP, that it would be pretty quickly afterwards — and after they brought Garr back out to pitch the top of the 6th, I figured Scheppers wasn’t getting in. Onto Marteen…

First off, the stadium gun at Frisco wasn’t on/working. As you might imagine I wasn’t pleased with this. Perez came out for his warmups and it was clear he was throwing hard — but I couldn’t really tell how hard without the gun. Andrew Romine steps in and Perez promptly walks him on four pitches. He looked a little nervous - which would probably jive with his performances at the end of last season. He settles down by striking out the second hitter and then getting a grounder to SS that is an easy dp in the bigs (the second baseman threw it wildly past first). He then struckout the next batter and was rolling.

For his second inning, I snuck my way behind a group of scouts at homeplate (there were at least seven guys with radar guns at the game). His first pitch of the second inning was 95 mph and it didn’t change much from there. His FB sat consistently 93-95 according to the guys gun that I was snooping on — with the occasional 91 mixed in (possibly a 2 seamer?). He actually threw more curves and changeups than I expected — and they were very effective when he was in the zone. He got swings and misses on both pitches and froze a few hitters as well. The curve ranged from 76-81 and he seemed to have okay command of it (actually better than I expected from a 19 year old). The change was usually around 83 and had the makings of a good pitch. IMO, his command of those two pitches is what’s going to determine if he’s truly special.

I thought the umpire had an inconsistent zone behind the plate. One of the guys that walked probably should have struck out twice (on one pitch he started walking back to the dugout and the ump stopped him). The two base hits were both opposite field (one to left and one to right) and both batters seemed to be a little bit jammed by them. I’d think it’s fair to say that no hitters really made “solid” contact off of him. Arkansas only got a total of three balls into the outfield on the night (the two hits and one lazy flyout to left). I’m not sure anyone pulled a FB all night.

Martin did have to field one bunt and looked athletic on the mound. He is definitely a bit on the small side, but I didn’t think he looked like he was exerting himself too much to get the velocity. If I had to guess, I’d say he will fill out a bit more as the uni was particularly baggy on him. One other thing that stands out about him is his demeanor on the field. A lot of the other players wear their hats sideways and seem to be joking around a lot — not Martin. Maybe it’s cause he’s young but he looked very business-like. Maybe that was the nerves, or the fact that he’s 19 and surrounded by a bunch of guys that are 24-25, but he didn’t seem to care about anything but baseball. Not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Overall, I can see what a lot of the excitement is about. He has great velocity from the left side and two other pitches that both were fooling AA hitters. I think he has all the potential in the world — but he will need to learn to command all of his pitches better and prove that he can hold his velocity deep into games (not to mention pitch a full season of innings). If he does those things, I could easily see him as one of the top 10-15 starters in the bigs — but of course those are still big ifs at this point.

Aside from Martin, I’d feel safe to say that there wasn’t much worth watching out there tonight. The pitcher for the Travelers was pretty good — Brasier. The guy in front of me had him at 93 pretty consistently. I don’t know too much about him but seems like he at least has the potential to be a decent pen arm. That said, both offenses looked totally anemic. I honestly think one ball was hit hard while I was there — the double by Richardson.

Oh and bigboy1234 — sory but Lemon didn’t get in the game while I was there. I’ll probably make it back for another of MP’s starts though and try to give you a report back then.