What Else We Recieved For Doug Fister

Sometimes we all say things stupid. Just admit it. I know–we all know plenty of people who just put their foot in their mouth and sound stupid. It happens all the time. We all just have to come to grips with it.

It’s like admitting that you’re wrong. Guy’s who are married know and understand this better than most. It’s just a simple way of defusing a situation. I get that some guys can’t admit that their wrong and whatever. But look I know I’m wrong… I’m wrong all the time about things.

But, see every once in a long while it’s kind of interesting to see a few things go right. I can’t say that I was right or correct about this specific one since I’ve seen never seen him player in person.

The fun thing about this whole blogging things is making friends. Smart ones….errr smarter than me, at least.

When they tell me something I listen… well sometimes. But, much of the time I’d rather go by what someone else tells me (as well as explains to me) that  they’ve seen with their eyes than make an assessment based on nothing that I’ve seen.

Kind of funny that I say that with all the scouts vs. stats things being all drummed with the release of money ball. I assure you this has nothing to do with that.

A month and a half ago the Mariners traded Doug Fister as you all know. He’s been a lot of fun to watch pitch for the Tigers and I hope for all the best for him as he is one of contributors and keys to their playoff run and even their World Series hopes.

But, who I’d like to focus on in this post is the least talked about component in the July deadline trade, Francisco Martinez.

Many people referred to him being just another Carlos Triunfel. A player with no proof of said raw power.

I saw videos of him and I thought there was potential. Then I was told by a few different people that he was more than just Triunfel and insisted he had real raw power.

Then he got off to a slow start. The first few weeks he was just tinkering around. He was driving the ball but still swinging and missing a bit too much. Then a funny thing happened. August 16, the first night of a 5 game home series against the Tennessee Smokie, he went 4-5.

Then those line drives just started sinking. He started collecting extra base hits and flashing some of that raw power.

His overall line for Jackson was pretty good. This doesn’t include a wRC+ of 111 or a wOBA of .351 that all make his line look even better.

Two other encouraging numbers is that he was driving the ball 19% of the time, put up a speed rating of 6.7. He hadn’t been driving the ball well prior to coming to the organization and I have to say that to me was one of the things that was a read flag to me. But, I was really excited to see it improve.

The other thing that is exciting is to see his speed rating sitting so high. This came from the 7 doubles, 3 triples and the 2 stolen bases. One of the high lights of Martinez was not just his raw power but also his speed and I’m incredibly excited to see what could happen if he puts this all together and shifts into the next gear.

Yes, you could point out the fact he only had 4 walks in just over a month, the fact he swung and missed too much or that his BABIP was extremely high.  But the most important fact in my book was the .171 ISO

He’ll most likely repeat AA for multitude of reason, some include nothing to do with him specifically. But, while he has some concerns there certainly is some reasons to become excited with him and depending how he performs in winter league he could end up sneaking into quiet a few different top-10 lists.

I’m not quiet sure what he’s going to turn into. To be honest I don’t see any third basemen that you can look at in the base 20 years and say that’s him. If everything breaks just right that’s what type of career he’d have. I think that’s part of the fun, the mystery of it all.

Regardless of how everything next year turns out the Mariners have added yet another very strong piece to their ever growing farm system. One that has the potential slide into the top-10 rankings.