Meet the Brewers prospect they call 'El espectáculo'

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MILWAUKEE -- Brewers prospect Ernesto Martinez Jr. can hit home runs one inning and do the splits while taking throws at first base the next. To say he’ll be fun to watch when the Brewers report to Spring Training in February may be an understatement.

A club source confirmed an earlier report that Martinez had re-signed with Milwaukee on a Minor League contract that includes an invitation to big league camp, making “The Cuban Missile” the Brewers’ first known non-roster invitee.

That means there are no guarantees for Martinez, a 6-foot-6, left-handed hitter from Cuba who first signed with the Brewers in 2017, and put up an .831 OPS last season at Double-A Biloxi. But Milwaukee has had a knack in recent years for uncovering gems like Tobias Myers and Jared Koenig, who were both non-roster invitees in 2024. Myers came out of nowhere to post a 3.00 ERA in 138 Major League innings and won Most Valuable Pitcher honors from the Milwaukee chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America. Koenig logged a 2.47 ERA in 55 appearances and was named the Brewers’ “Unsung Hero.”

In 2023, Colin Rea was a non-roster invitee, and he’d go on to pitch 292 1/3 Major League innings over the next two seasons. In 2022, Jason Alexander was a non-roster invitee, and he delivered 71 2/3 innings that year to help hold the rest of the rotation together. In 2021, Jace Peterson, Brad Boxberger and Hoby Milner were all non-roster invitees.

So, it’s worth monitoring Minor League signings as they trickle in this winter. And Martinez, whose deal with the Brewers was first reported by independent journalist Francys Romero, is the first we know of for 2025.

“You have to see it in person,” said Brewers assistant director of player development Brenton Del Chairo. “The first thing you’ll be astounded by is the massive size of this person. But he’s extremely mobile and he does things at that size that are so athletic. It’s extremely fun to watch. And he plays with such energy and passion.

“‘El espectáculo’ is what we call him, and he lives up to it, I’ll tell you that.”

That translates to “The Show” or “The Spectacle.” Take your pick.

Martinez was born June 20, 1999, in Holguin, Cuba. He played for Team Cuba in the 2014 U-15 World Championship before leaving the island for France, where his father played professionally, and joined the French national team that participated in the 2017 World Baseball Classic Qualifier. He was training in San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic at a facility run by former Major Leaguer Fernando Tatis when he signed with the Brewers for $800,000.

Last season was Martinez’s best year as a professional, as he played a career-high 110 games at Biloxi and slashed .284/.365/.466 with 30 doubles, 13 home runs and 20 stolen bases while cutting his swing and miss to 77 strikeouts in 457 plate appearances, making him one of the intriguing names to know as the Brewers ponder which prospects to protect from the Rule 5 Draft. Tuesday is the deadline to add eligible players, including Martinez, to the 40-man roster.

Of course, teams now have more sophisticated ways to measure players’ offensive impact, and that’s where Martinez stood out. He led the Southern League with a 109 mph average exit velocity, Del Chiaro said, and projects as a darling for Statcast’s new bat speed metrics. The Brewers use a bat sensor from Blast Motion to measure prospects’ bat speed, but it struggles to keep up with Martinez because the highest reading is 89.9 mph.

“He tops out the Blast sensor when we use it,” Del Chiaro said. “He’s just continued to impact the baseball. The ‘damage’ components, the quality of contact components, have continued to improve. He’s progressively gotten better the more he’s matured.

“And he’s an even better person. He’s just full of life. He’s happy to be at the ballpark. He’s happy to put on a show. You come to the ballpark, you’re going to see him do something special, whether it’s the full-on splits, whether it’s stealing a bunch of bases, whether it’s hitting the ball out of the ballpark. It’s going to be entertaining.”