The Nationals announced that they have given right-hander J.D. Martin his unconditional release to create roster space (Twitter link).
Martin, 28, has made 24 starts for the Nationals over the last two seasons, most of which came in 2009. He has pitched to a respectable 4.32 ERA with 4.9 K/9 and 2.5 BB/9 in 125 innings. Martin has spent most of the last three seasons in Triple-A, posting an excellent 3.21 ERA with 6.1 K/9 and 1.4 BB/9 in 144 innings at the level.
Earlier this afternoon, MLB.com's Bill Ladson predicted that the Nationals would cut ties with the pitcher.
Mike Axisa contributed to this post.
Go, Kenny, go! Anything is better than what we (haven’t) got.
not bad if he can prove he is healthy and willing to move to the pen once peavy is back
Can’t pitch in the pen. He’s got no stuff. He’s a AAAA guy. Stash him in AAA and let him pitch with competent control in the bigs for short stretches.
Doubt he stays unemployed for long.
Padres?
Better than Mosely
Kind of an odd move with how badly the Nationals were looking for starting pitching.
Yeah we are looking for quality starting pitching, not someone that is very hittable in the upper 80s, if your a Braves fan you can have him.
We are looking for 4th starters not AAAA/5th starters. Right now they have Zimmermann, Livan Hernandez, Jason Marquis, John Lannnan, Tom Gorzelanny/// Yunesky Maya, Ross Detwiler, Chien-Ming Wang, Tom Milone, Luis Atilano, Garrett Mock. They don’t even have room to stash him in AAA Syracuse.
Mariners? Competition for the back end of the rotation.
You know The Mariners always sign our dropped players so i see it happening
so they realease MArtin and they keep Mock in the organization. WTF? Mock is the one who shoulda been released. Not Martin. Martin has done much better than Mock for the organization. Mock is on too long of a leash and is always injured
Mock has an arm, Martin doesn’t. J.D., bless his soul, just doesn’t have the stuff to pitch in the bigs. Mock does… though he is always injured and forever inconsistent.
Having seen J.D. pitch a lot, I would be surprised if he ends up anywhere on a major league roster.
Maybe J.D. Martin needs a good pitching coach. I don’t know any thing about Martin, however saying he just doesn’t have the stuff (throwing in the upper 80s.) to pitch in the ‘bigs’ sounds like something that was said to Jammie Moyer in Boston.
the difference between Jamie Moyer and J.D. Martin is that there is one Jamie Moyer and a millions of guys like J.D. Isn’t impossible for him to succeed in the bigs, per se, but with stuff that could barely be called average that seems like you are asking a pitching coach to do a lot.
Martin has a ceiling and he’s reached it. He’s a AAAA insurance kind of guy. Last year was his opportunity to leverage that into a more stable major league existence. His back gave out on him in the middle of the attempt. He’ll get healthier and he’ll get to try to prove the skeptics wrong at AAA. This guy can’t miss bats at the major league level, though. It’s all control, and it’s not even that much movement with the control. He had a decent curve at times which was the closest he had to a strikeout pitch but even that’s not really a plus pitch.
They still have, I think, 3 more spots to free up on the 40-man, so you may still get your wish in regards to Mock.
His back must be a lot worse than we’ve been lead to believe.
I’d have overpaid him and DFA’d him, like the Tigers just did Galarraga. The Nats need options at SP and Martin had potential.
Believe he was still struggling coming back from back surgery he had in August.
Great news, I dont want to see Martin, Mock, or Atilano pitching for us anymore. Martin was 1 – 5 for us last year. Olsen was another guy I didnt want to see anymore, but he is gone already, we dont need these guys that throw in the upper 80s.
He could have some promise, stats don’t look bad. All I know about him is that I seen him at a Pirates game and he seemed like a really cool guy. He was talking with a lot of the fans for a while but I didn’t know who he was at the time. I hope he latches on somewhere.
He is a classy guy. He’s kind of AAAA and Nats have a lot of guys like that. I’m glad that they are moving on with him early enough so that he’ll have a chance to latch on someone else.
Waiting for Strasburg and Solis, I want to see Livan, Zimmerman, Gorz, Marquis, and Lannan in the rotation with Maya, Detwiller, and Wang on stand by. And a plus bullpen with Stammen, Ballister, Ramirez, Burnett, Coffey, Clippard, Storen, Rodriguez, Kimball, and Carr.
i don’t see carr, kimball, or ramirez cracking the bullpen just yet.
I see the rotation being Livan, Zimmeman, Lannan, Gorz, with a good fight between Maya and Marquis for the 5 slot.
Bullpen of Stammen, Detwiler, Ballister, Burnett, Clippard, Storen, Rodriquez, and Maya if he doesn’t get the 5 spot.
I have no idea what they do with Ramirez. He’s a Rule 5 guy so you have to keep him on the squad or return him. If you liked him enough to Rule 5 him seems to me like you need to either work out a trade so you can option him down or not sign meh guys like Coffey that will cost a 25-man roster spot.
ah your right. I forgot about that. I guess I would send Maya or Marquis to AAA then and leave Ramirez in the pen until they can workout a trade.
That is a ten man bullpen… the Nats two man bench better be pretty versatile…
Mets could bring him in for aaa depth