A look at Orelvis Martinez's record-breaking season

There are multiple prisms through which to view Orelvis Martinez’s 2022 season.

Through one, he was a 20-year-old infielder who was the joint-youngest player on an Eastern League Opening Day roster -- he and Francisco Álvarez share a birthday -- and finished with a Double-A New Hampshire record 30 homers in 106 games. Through another, he hit just .203, struck out a career-high 28.5 percent of the time and had a below-average 96 wRC+.

The push and pull of MLB Pipeline’s No. 71 overall prospect may weigh on evaluators but doesn’t as much on the Blue Jays player himself.

“I feel like it was a great season for me,” Martinez said through teammate and translator Luis Quinones at Saturday’s MLB Pipeline Game of the Month. “I haven’t put the greatest numbers out there, but I feel pretty good about it.”

Those positives have to begin with Martinez’s plus raw power. Let’s put those 30 homers into additional context. As mentioned, the Dominican Republic native surpassed Chip Cannon (2006) and Eric Thames (2010) -- both with 27 -- for the most single-season homers in New Hampshire club history, and that’s no small feat for a club that’s boasted Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette and Gabriel Moreno in recent years.

Expand the framework out a little further to account for age and level, and the dinger production is even more impressive. Martinez’s 30 homers were second-most among all Double-A hitters in 2022, trailing only Quincy Nieporte’s 31 for Erie. Martinez is seven years younger than the SeaWolves slugger.

In fact, he became the first age-20 player to eclipse the 30-homer mark entirely at Double-A since Derrek Lee went deep 34 times for Memphis back in 1996.

These aren’t cheapies either.

The left-field wall at Erie’s UPMC Park hugs the adjacent hockey stadium Erie Insurance Arena, and after consultation with Tigers front-office members, the SeaWolves raised the home-run line on the wall to 36 feet high, one shy of Fenway Park’s Green Monster.

On May 17, Martinez cleared it so comfortably that his launched ball landed on the arena roof.

“It was probably one of the farthest ones I’ve hit,” Martinez said. “I feel like that’s my favorite.”

But as with many young sluggers, Martinez has struggled with punchouts throughout his career, and that kicked into another gear in 2022. His 28.5 percent K rate was 34th-highest among 138 qualifiers, and his 17.1 percent whiff-per-pitch rate was 20th-worst among the same group. (For reference, the Major League average for swinging-strike rate this year is 11.1 percent, entering Wednesday.)

Toronto officials have worked with Martinez on laying off breaking pitches out of the zone, and while he showed progress in that department at Single-A and High-A in 2021, he struggled again against the more advanced pitching of Double-A.

With a swing geared toward fly balls (51 percent) over line drives and ground balls, Martinez didn’t have many balls dropping in for hits either, leading to a Double-A-low .217 BABIP and a significant drop from his .293 in 2021.

Consider all of it a professional lesson for a player who enters the offseason the same age as many American college juniors.

“It’s been really difficult for me because I’ve been striking out a lot,” Martinez said. “But it’s something I’m going to be working on a lot in the offseason. … [I’ll] try to get as many reps as I can in the offseason from live pitchers.”

Where he’ll play remains just as up in the air. The 20-year-old possesses a plus throwing arm that is useful from anywhere on the dirt, but below-average present speed, which will likely slow as he ages, could keep him at third. He made 60 starts at shortstop with the Fisher Cats this summer and 43 at the hot corner, up from only 18 a season ago.

A move away from shortstop would get him away from Bo Bichette’s long-term hold on the position, though Matt Chapman (signed through 2023) looms as a block at third if Martinez has his eyes set on a Major League debut next year.

“At shortstop, you have to have more range and be more athletic,” Martinez said. “Third base is more about reactions and being closer to the base. … I feel comfortable anywhere they put me to play.”

Through all this, it’s important to remember that while age is just a number, it’s an important one in Martinez’s case. Gunnar Henderson is the youngest active Major Leaguer, and even he is five months older than Martinez. The Jays youngster has two more important things on his side -- time and tools.

“I feel pretty close,” Martinez said of Toronto, “but it’s my work that’s going to determine how close I’m going to be.”