TORONTO — Late Tuesday morning, the Blue Jays decided to play it safe with Bo Bichette. The shortstop had already missed three games with right calf soreness, and it didn’t appear a return to action was imminent, so they needed a position player, preferably someone who could provide a little offence.
For Bichette, it’s a chance to heal and return at full strength on or after June 25. Not ideal, but deemed necessary. For Orelvis Martinez, this decision would lead to a busy day of travel, and an opportunity to prove himself at the highest level for the first time.
A 9 a.m. phone call from triple-A bench coach Donnie Murphy woke Martinez up with the good news, and by 5:45 or so he made it to Rogers Centre, where Vladimir Guerrero Jr. promptly caught up with his 22-year-old teammate.
“Right away he gave me all of the facts,” Martinez later recalled through interpreter Hector Lebron. “All the things that I should do, things that I shouldn’t do. Advice. He’s like a big brother to me, so it’s been great.”
With 16 home runs and an .867 OPS at triple-A this year, Martinez certainly has the raw power to make an impact against MLB pitching. Yet he arrives in Toronto without guarantees of regular playing time or a sustained stint on the roster. Now that he’s in the majors, he’ll have to earn every chance he gets.
“If he’s not in the starting lineup, having his bat on the bench is beneficial,” said Blue Jays manager John Schneider. “He’ll have to get used to that a little bit, but there’s definitely going to be games where he’s starting whether it’s a left-handed pitcher or a right-handed pitcher. Hopefully he continues to swing it the way he’s been swinging it.”
Signed for $3.51 million out of the Dominican Republic in 2018, Martinez has always had game-changing power. In recent years, as he’s advanced into the upper minors, he’s also gotten better at laying off pitchers’ pitches off the plate. The approach been especially effective against left-handed pitching, as Martinez is batting .321/.406/.661 with five home runs in 64 plate appearances against lefties this year, but he also does damage against righties with 11 home runs and an .804 OPS.
As Schneider said, “he’s got a special bat.”
Defensively, the manager expects to use Martinez at second base, where he’s started 36 games this year, and “maybe a little bit of third,” where he’s started 15 times. The Blue Jays like the progress Martinez has shown at both positions this year, but realistically they expect the speed of the game to challenge the young infielder at first. If they’re leading by a run or two late, chances are good that someone else is playing the infield.
Remember, this promotion is partly because Martinez has impressed, but partly because the Blue Jays have a need (the other infielder on Toronto’s 40-man roster, Leo Jimenez, was just activated from the injured list two days ago). Without Bichette’s injury, Martinez remains in triple-A for a little longer.
“But you are where you are and the progress he’s made has been really good,” Schneider said.
When Martinez went on home run binges earlier in the season, a couple things stood in the way of a promotion. First, the defence, which has improved, but there was also the question of opportunity. Those reps aren’t exactly there now, especially at a time when the Blue Jays are facing a lot of right-handed pitching, but they’re fine with him playing more sporadically at first.
“He’s a young, exciting player,” Schneider said. “You watch how he responds, reacts, performs along with everyone else we have. Whenever you’re coming up to fill a need, it’s not ideal, so we’ll see how he looks and how other people are going, too.”
Meanwhile, the Blue Jays will rely on Isiah Kiner-Falefa to handle shortstop duties with Ernie Clement the primary backup. Considering the challenge of replacing a shortstop mid-season, the Blue Jays are in a relatively good spot.
Zooming out even further, the move to select Martinez over someone like Jimenez also reflects a greater willingness to prioritize offence over defence and the present over the future. Granted, a stint in the majors may even be good for Martinez’s development, but this isn’t a move the Blue Jays would have made two months ago.
Midway through the season, though, they need offence from wherever they can get it, and if that means putting a top prospect on the big-league bench for a couple of weeks, so be it.
“I’m just going to enjoy it,” Martinez said. “Enjoy it to the max and keep learning from my teammates.”