Right-hander Francis Martes went unclaimed on waivers after being designated for assignment by the Astros and will remain in the organization, tweets The Athletic’s Jake Kaplan. Houston designated him for assignment late last week.
Now 25 years old, Martes once ranked as one of the game’s premier pitching prospects. The big righty peaked at No. 15 overall on Baseball America’s Top 100 and also landed within the game’s Top 25 overall prospects at MLB.com and at FanGraphs as he rose through Houston’s minor league ranks.
That peak, however, came more than three years ago, and Martes has seen his stock plummet in the years since. He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2018 before being hit with not one but two bans after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs. Martes was suspended for 80 games after testing positive for Clomiphene in March 2019, and less than a year later he was saddled with a 162-game ban after testing positive for boldenone.
Martes returned to the mound in 2021, but he’s been drilled for 14 runs (10 earned) on eight hits and a staggering 13 walks in just 8 1/3 frames. He hasn’t hit any batters but has unloaded three wild pitches as well.
Martes made his big league debut with the Astros as a 21-year-old back in 2017, though he struggled to a 5.80 ERA in 54 1/3 frames. In four years since that time, he’s only managed only 33 1/3 innings because of that injury and the pair of PED violations. It’s possible he’ll eventually work his way back into the mix for a big league spot, but given that he’s walked 29 percent of the batters he’s faced in his limited mound work so far in 2021, he has quite a ways to go before that happens.
The double dip of PED’s is tough. Time for Japan or Korea I guess.
“once ranked as one of the game’s premier pitching prospects”
Just a reminder that even top prospects fail A LOT.
Top prospects fail more than they succeed
Just a reminder top prospects are still more valuable than all rentals and probably more valuable than all the guys available at the deadline.
Reminds me of former Mariners/Braves prospect Luiz Gohara. Could’ve been elite on pure stuff alone, just couldn’t get it all together for one reason or another.
yeah I remember that guy. hope he can find a job somewhere and work on what went wrong
I agree they both had the talent to potentially excel but made poor choices. Gohara had significant conditioning issues. A few times with the Braves he was over 300lbs, which could explain his injuries.
Geoff Blum used to call him “Frankie Tuesday”. Small sample size for 2021 but it’s hard to know if what he did in the past was ever legit. It’s sink or swim time for sure
The failure of any young pitcher in the Astros organization right now is far outweighed by the success of the others.
Even with Forrest Whitley struggling so much over the past 5 years and out for the rest of 2021 after TJ surgery, the Astros have had tremendous success developing other pitchers like Framber Valdez, Lance McCullers, Jose Urquidy, Luis Garcia, and Cristian Javier.
An example of stupidity exceeding talent.
An example of stupidity exceeding talent.
Says the person that says it twice.
In all fairness, the app is buggy and double-posts comments sometimes.
agreed
I’m surprised the Cardinals didn’t pick him up.