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MLB.com’s prospect rankers are big fans of Astros RHP Francis Martes and it’s easy to see why. He blew away Single-A Quad Cities and demolished hitter-friendly High-A Lancaster in 2015. Martes followed that up with a solid run through the tough Texas League with Double-A Corpus Christi in 2016.
Mike Rosenbaum ranked Martes as the No. 5 RHP prospect in baseball in early January and now Jim Callis has expanded on that by breaking Martes’ arsenal of pitches.
Let's try this again ... Somehow omitted #Padres' Espinoza from chart of #Top100Prospects pitchers with top tools: https://t.co/T3iT0fWaBb pic.twitter.com/YU7jCx1EnD
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) February 2, 2017
Martes checks in the second tier among pitcher tools with an overall total of 235. Of course, the fastball jumps off the page with a 70 rating but his break on his curve gets top marks among the elite prospects at 65.
Callis said of Martes:
The other 235s belong to Francis Martes (Astros, No. 20), Anderson Espinoza (Padres, No. 25) and Jose De Leon (Rays, No. 33). Martes and Espinoza both feature 70 fastballs, with the former backing his up with a 65 curveball and the latter displaying a 60 changeup.
Read the full article here.