Manager Mike Matheny gave his first official “State of Carlos Martinez” address of the spring Thursday, offering views on the team’s best starting pitcher over the past three seasons.
It’s always interesting — and usually quite revealing — when Matheny talks about Martinez.
The quotes come from a story written by the legendary baseball writer Rick Hummel in the Post-Dispatch and STLtoday.com …
First of all, I agree with some of Matheny’s assessments.
Matheny believes new pitching coach Mike Maddux can help Martinez get to the next level. Definitely. I share the optimism.
Matheny suggests Martinez can get to the next level — in other words, get better. And I agree with that too. Fewer walks, cut down on the home runs, sharper command of the strike zone, and lower hard-contact rate against him.
Matheny said: “We’ve got some really talented coaches and some really talented veteran players that are going to continue to allow him to get there and it’s going to be fun to watch.” I agree. The new staff can help Martinez find his ceiling. And Martinez is always fun to watch.
However …
I disagree or take issue with some of Matheny’s comments.
1. Matheny: “I continue to say he needs to be one of the best pitchers in the league with what he has.”
Martinez already is one of the league’s best pitchers.
Again, Martinez has such formidable talent and high upside, it’s reasonable to expect more from him. But we should also be fair, and rely on facts. And he is one of the league’s best pitchers. Period.
Even though Martinez had some patches of inconsistency in 2017 he still ranked second in the NL for most innings pitched, was fourth in strikeouts, 11th in fielding independent ERA (3.91), and had the third-best ground ball rate. He was tied for fourth with 20 quality starts. And he was ninth with 3.3 fWAR. If this was his worst season … good grief … I’d say that Carlos Martinez is pretty freaking good, pretty freaking special.
Let’s widen the lens ….
Martinez has been a starting pitcher for three seasons, 2015-2017.
And during the three-season stretch he ranks 6th in the NL with 42 wins, is tied for 11th with a 3.26 ERA, is sixth with 575 innings pitched, ranks seventh in strikeouts, is tied at sixth with 60 quality starts, and has the second-highest ground-ball rate at 54 percent. The Martinez 10.1 WAR over the three seasons puts him 12th.
And he did all of this while learning on the job. Martinez was 23 in his first season (2015) as a Cards’ starter.
Consider: over the last three seasons, only three NL starting pitchers have put together this combination:
At least 60 quality starts … 42+ wins … an ERA of 3.26 or less … minimum 572 strikeouts … at least 575 innings pitched. The three names: Max Scherzer, Jake Arrieta and Carlos Martinez.
If we add ground-ball rate to the parameters there is only one MLB starting pitcher who had the combination I cited above —plus a GB rate of at least 54 percent.
That pitcher is Carlos Martinez.
2. Matheny: “It’s the little things in his preparation. Is he studying the game?”
Oh, my. Here we go…
By posing these questions about his pitcher’s work habits and and dedication, Matheny obviously believes it’s an issue. Or he wouldn’t have brought it up.
Perhaps Martinez can intensify his prep-study work. Part of that is taking an extra-hard look at what he can do better, correcting what we did wrong, and applying the knowledge gained by learning from mistakes.
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:
Let’s just say there’s a manager who doesn’t know how to run a bullpen, and repeatedly screws it up, leaving the team’s fans so frustrated they want to drink gasoline and play with matches.
A manager who has been running the game for — let’s just say six years — and still doesn’t have a handle on the right time to pull a tiring starting pitcher … even though the analytics people have handed him all of the information he needs to recognize it’s a huge mistake to let the starter go through the opposing lineup for a third time in a game. And really, there’s there’s no excuse for failing to dig into the data — or to ignore the data. It’s there to help him make a smart decision. A smart decision that could mean the difference between winning and losing. This, as opposed to being willfully ignorant and costing your team a game.
I’m also thinking of a manager who tells his position players to keep “pushing” on the bases even though most are slow, or don’t have good instincts … and with the manager telling them to push on the bases — RUN OFF THE CLIFF BOYS! — the team piles up a staggeringly bad total of runners lost on the bases via unforced errors. Giving away all of these outs is terrible baseball. Dumb baseball. But the manager keeps pushing … all the way into third place.
So I’m thinking a manager who repeats this foolishness even though he’s had abundant opportunities to learn from his mistakes and smarten up … and even though he has the analytics staff to provide valuable info to make him understand that facts actually do matter …
Well, I’m thinking the manager probably needs to spend more time focusing on the little things in preparation … he really should really hunker down and dedicate himself to studying and learning.
Yeah, I’m thinking that might be a good plan for the manager.
And then maybe he can question the preparation of a pitcher without everyone erupting in laughter.
Managers do have mirrors, yes?
3. Matheny: “And the consistency. That’s something that’s really hard for an emotional kid. We really love when he’s riding those highs. But you’ve got to be real careful with those lows — whether it’s from the mound or the batter’s box or in the field. That comes with time.”
Kid?
Martinez is 26. He’s married with children. He’s wonderfully generous in his devotion to charitable causes in St. Louis and in the D.R.
Consistency? You mean kind of like having the league’s fourth-highest total of quality starts during his first three seasons in a big-league rotation? That kind of consistency?
Will we ever reach a point where Matheny stops calling Martinez a “kid”and maligning him for being emotional? Will we ever get to that place where Matheny can just evaluate a pitching performance without taking subtle character swipes at Martinez?
If Martinez is emotional — scoop! — it’s because it’s his personality. He isn’t a robot. He is emotional when he pitches great. He is emotional when he has a poor inning or start. This is who he is. You know, similar to the way Chris Carpenter was feverishly emotional during his starts, snorting and stomping around the mound, barking at opponents or even his own teammates.
Way too much has been made over Martinez boiling over emotionally and committing four costly errors last season. Um, did we say that about Matt Morris and Jake Westbrook when they made five errors in a season?
This “kid” thing is demeaning to an adult professional that’s done a helluva job for the Cardinals. But Matheny can’t even grasp a basic point here: this “kid” was exceptional as soon as he entered the rotation … and except for glitches that all pitches encounter, Martinez has sustained that success for three years and counting. And Martinez came out of the starting gate better than ANY young starter in the majors.
Between 2015 and 2017, among all MLB starting pitchers age 25 or younger during the three seasons, Martinez had the most wins, pitched the most innings, was No. 1 in quality starts, first in strikeouts, and had the best ERA (minimum 400 IP.)
Oh, but he’s too emotional! He’s a kid! Gotta mature!
And now its about how Martinez doesn’t prepare or study as he should.
Yep, this is where we are with Cardinals baseball.
Here’s the manager of the Cardinals, frequently taking digs at his best pitcher. Personal digs. Digs that he would never take at his other starting pitchers, even though Martinez is superior to every single one of them. Tagging Martinez with the kind of shots that will influence gullible fans into believing Martinez is a head case — when they should respect him as one of the NL’s top starters at relatively young age.
Yeah, Martinez can do better. Absolutely.
But what is Matheny’s excuse? When will he get better?
And this is the manager that chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. hired for leadership skills.
This is your Beloved Leader of Men.
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend…
–Bernie
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