Is Carlos Martinez the Next Carlos Carrasco?

Free Pitcher X! It’s a chant often heard when a pitcher with a starter’s arsenal who was a starter in the minors gets banished to the bullpen. This time around, those chants were directed toward Carlos Martinez. A starter throughout his minor league career, Martinez has started just eight games for the Cardinals, versus 70 relief appearances. It seemingly wasn’t due to the Cardinals organization believing he lacked the stuff or stamina to succeed as a starter. Instead, the team was just overloaded with rotation options and rather than keep Martinez in the minors, why not allow him to contribute at the Major League level? It’s what happened to Trevor Rosenthal, but his bullpen dominance ensured that he has found a home there. With a rotation opening, Martinez now appears to be the favorite for the team’s fifth starter job.

Aside from sharing the same first name, there are actually a lot of similarities between Martinez and Carlos Carrasco, who you all know I fell in love with beginning in mid-2013. Let’s compare Martinez to the pre-2014 version of Carrasco:

	BABIP	K%	BB%	GB%	FBv	F-Strike%
Carlos Martinez	0.325	21.2%	8.8%	51.5%	96.7	59.5%
Carlos Carrasco	0.336	15.6%	7.9%	50.4%	94.9*	58.8%

*Carrasco’s 2013 velocity after returning from Tommy John surgery

Obviously, it’s not a perfect match, as until this season, Carrasco was unable to translate his outwardly good stuff into strikeouts, and most of his innings came as a starter, versus Martinez who has primarily pitched in relief. But the skill sets are quite similar. Both pitchers induced lots of ground balls, throw hard and displayed acceptable control that had room to improve. Both pitchers had also been bitten by terrible defensive support leading to inflated BABIP marks.

The reasons to get excited about Martinez continue as we move away from the Carrasco comparison. Check out the SwStk% of his offerings compared to the league average:

	Martinez	League Avg
Four-Seam	9.0%	6.9%
Slider	23.7%	15.2%
Two-Seam	9.8%	5.4%
Changeup	17.5%	14.9%

That’s four pitches (though the changeup was thrown just 40 times, representing a rather small sample) that generated swings and misses significantly above the league average. And that sinker gets ground balls 70% of the time! That is truly one elite pitch. It’s no surprise then that Martinez shows up second on Eno Sarris’ Pitch Arsenal Score ranking. Who is he behind? Carlos Carrasco of course.

But before you rush over to your early 2015 rankings and circle, star and highlight Martinez’ name, there’s this:

	wOBA	K%	BB%	xFIP
2014 vLHH	0.363	11.1%	12.9%	4.84
2014 vRHH	0.275	30.2%	6.5%	2.63

While he has been rather unhittable against right-handers, lefties clobbered him this past season. He walked more batters than he struck out! Of course, these are just surface results. Let’s find out why lefties were so successful:

Pitch Type	Whiffs vLHH	Whiffs vRHH
Four-Seam	3.7%	14.6%
Slider	18.8%	25.3%
Two-Seam	3.3%	14.1%
Changeup	17.3%	29.6%

Oh my. It really is that simple — righties have had major trouble making contact with Martinez’s pitches, while lefties have had no such issues. The slider and changeup whiff rates still sit at respectable levels against left-handers, but his two fastballs are certainly not fooling them, and he throws those two more than 70% of the time. Let’s take a look at another table, this time looking at his rate of balls thrown:

Pitch Type	Balls vLHH	Balls vRHH
Four-Seam	37.0%	29.1%
Slider	21.7%	32.3%
Two-Seam	49.2%	35.0%
Changeup	49.0%	44.4%

And there’s your explanation for his inflated walk rate against left-handed batters. With the exception of his slider, which he used least frequently against lefties, he can’t find the plate when a left-hander is in the batter’s box. Nearly half of his sinkers and changeups were balls!

Unfortunately, I cannot determine exactly why Martinez is unable to make lefties swing and miss or throw strikes when they step to the plate. However, his current statistical profile is that of a ROOGY. Without an adjustment, some sort of cure for this ailment, Martinez may continue to struggle against lefties, at which point opposing teams will realize this and set their lineups accordingly. The ultimate downside is that the Cardinals observe his platoon issues and demote him back to the bullpen.

Of course, Martinez has been so good against righties, and with his arsenal, may very well continue to be, that he could still post solid overall numbers as a member of the rotation and one’s fantasy team. His upside, though, is capped at the moment by those platoon issues, which removes him as a candidate to become my top pitching sleeper of the year and the 2015 Carlos Carrasco. I really wanted to love him, but alas, the search continues.