Pittsburgh Pirates Minors: Jason Martin Promoted to Triple-A

The Pittsburgh Pirates have promoted one of their top outfield prospects to Triple-A. Jason Martin will now join the Indianapolis Indians.

When the Pittsburgh Pirates promoted Mitch Keller to from Double-A to Triple-A last night, many were happy to see the best pitching prospect in the system get one step closer to the big leagues.  However, the team also has moved up one of their top hitting outfield prospects from the Curve to the Indians as well, with Jason Martin getting the call. This news was broke on Twitter via Sean McCool of Pirates Prospects.

The Pittsburgh Pirates acquired Martin back in January when the team shipped out starting pitcher Gerrit Cole to Houston.  At the time Martin seemed to be more of a throw-in.  The team acquired three other big league players in the deal in the form of Joe Musgrove, Colin Moran, and Michael Feliz, all who have made impacts on the big league team this year.  Meanwhile, Martin was a prospect who ranked just inside the Astros top 25.  However, there obviously was something that Neal Huntington and company liked about Martin.  Early reports were that he was a player who brought both power and speed, but lacked consistency at the plate.

2018 Season

Well whatever consistency problems Martin had at the plate in the Astros system, he has looked to have fixed them.  Martin not only put himself on the Pittsburgh Pirates radar, but he could become one of their top 10 prospects before season’s end.  Martin missed the first few weeks of the season due to an injury.  However, when he finally made his Pittsburgh Pirates organizational début, he did not look back.  For the Curve, he slashed .325/.392/.522 with nine home runs, 13 doubles, and five triples. The lefty hitter also had 38 runs batted in along with seven stolen bases.  Of course, not all was perfect, as Martin struck out 61 times while taking 28 bases on balls in his 68 total games.

Next: Mitch Keller Promoted

While his walk rate of about 10 percent is not bad, his strikeout rate is rather concerning.  As mentioned above, Martin struck out 61 times in 68 games which gives him a strikeout rate of 21 percent.  Anything over 20 percent is a red flag normally, but it is lower than his 24 percent rate with the Astros organization last season. So this will be interesting to see if it increases as he moves up against more experienced competition in Triple-A.  Still, he showed off the tools that he possesses at Double-A.  Now, it is more clear why the Pittsburgh Pirates asked for him in the trade. If he can continue to use these tools and develop, he could be up by September of this season.