"If Molina can keep him in the strike zone, Martinez has the tools to be a major force."

He needs to come up with an effective third pitch to become a starter. He can't get out lefties with the fastball/slider combination he has now. His splits are .829 OPS vs. lefties/.622 OPS vs. righties.

forsberg_us wrote:

artie_fufkin wrote:

"If Molina can keep him in the strike zone, Martinez has the tools to be a major force."

He needs to come up with an effective third pitch to become a starter. He can't get out lefties with the fastball/slider combination he has now. His splits are .829 OPS vs. lefties/.622 OPS vs. righties.

Having been a pitcher, you would understand this better than I.  I remember talking to Chad about Rosenthal back when he first went to the bullpen.  Chad thought Rosenthal had starter quality stuff, but that he would lose it in the bullpen because he would rarely need more than 2 pitches.  

I'm wondering if Martinez has a 3rd pitch we haven't seen because we've mostly seen him out of the pen.  He was very effective last spring competing for a starter's job.  Maybe he lost the feel for a changeup or something like that.

It's pluasible that a pitch might atrophy if it's not used in a game situation, but pitchers - especially ones like Rosenthal and Martinez that aspire to be starters - are always going to work on stuff during bullpens or side sessions. 
One of the things in Three Nights in August that Bissinger did a really good job of explaining was one of the differences between pitchers and hitters is hitters are utter creatures of habit who won't change anything if they're going well, while pitchers will try just about anything anytime to see if it works.
 

alz wrote:

artie_fufkin wrote:

forsberg_us wrote:

Having been a pitcher, you would understand this better than I.  I remember talking to Chad about Rosenthal back when he first went to the bullpen.  Chad thought Rosenthal had starter quality stuff, but that he would lose it in the bullpen because he would rarely need more than 2 pitches.  

I'm wondering if Martinez has a 3rd pitch we haven't seen because we've mostly seen him out of the pen.  He was very effective last spring competing for a starter's job.  Maybe he lost the feel for a changeup or something like that.

It's pluasible that a pitch might atrophy if it's not used in a game situation, but pitchers - especially ones like Rosenthal and Martinez that aspire to be starters - are always going to work on stuff during bullpens or side sessions. 
One of the things in Three Nights in August that Bissinger did a really good job of explaining was one of the differences between pitchers and hitters is hitters are utter creatures of habit who won't change anything if they're going well, while pitchers will try just about anything anytime to see if it works.
 

I believe the only thing keeping Carlos Martinez from using his third pitches (or more) is coming out from the pen. You never want to get torched as a reliever on your 3rd or 4th best pitch. They are nearly never thrown.

I do think he has some options though, and not limited to just two (Fastball, Curve, Change at least I thought).
 

He has a changeup, which is probably more aptly described as a "Duncan Sinker," the 2-seamer which Lohse and Suppan mastered that breaks down and in to a righty. According to Fan Graphs, he threw his change 10 percent of the time this year, as opposed to 5 percent in 2013, which is likely attributable to the recognition he needed a third pitch during the seven games he was a starter.
From what I've seen, the problems with his sinker/change is it's not a consistent pitch for him, and the discrepancy in mph between it and his fastball last year was only eight mph, again according to Fan Graphs. What ended up happening is when the change didn't work for him, it ended up being an 88 mph cripple pitch with no movement.
He's obviously a work in progress. Suppan and Lohse didn't master that pitch until they were 30-years-old. The best one I've ever seen is Pedro Martinez's, and he was a freak.