Comments on: What Happened to Andy Marte?

By: Heather

Heather — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 07:27:18 +0000

Another guy who seems to have stalled out in Triple-A is Wes Timmons. For a couple of years, Timmons looked like the Braves’ answer to Kevin Youkilis (ridiculously good BB:K ratios). But now his numbers have fallen significantly at Richmond this year.

Admittedly, Timmons is a lot older than Marte and never had the same ceiling. But anyone have any idea what’s happened to Timmons?

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 02:17:44 +0000

Sometimes with really young prospects, I try to think about what if they had gone to college. Marte would be in his 2nd or 3rd year of professional ball. He still has plenty of time to become a productive regular, although I assumed he would be starting at 3b for the home team.

By: Shaun

Shaun — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 21:28:30 +0000

Marte has almost 2 K/BB. Walk rate is obviously important but also I think strikeout rate is more important in the minors than the majors. Also BABIP is more repeatable for hitters than it is for pitchers.

Seems he always had trouble making contact and making solid contact. Pitchers may have eventually learned that if they throw him a decent pitch for a strike, he’s going to miss it a lot or at the very least not make solid contact.

I don’t have Marte’s minor league BABIP numbers but in 90 major league games his BABIP is only .230.

By: Marc Schneider

Marc Schneider — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 22:42:35 +0000

These guys are human, not robots. Sometimes things just don’t work out. I think playing baseball at the major league level requires the ability to learn and adapt to very different conditions and some guys can do it and some can’t. Temperament and confidence play big roles; once a player starts doubting himself, his skills diminish. I’m not saying that is what happened to Marte but the point is you can’t really evaluate the psychological make up of a player.

By: JPWF

JPWF — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 20:37:34 +0000

“Komminsk had a fatal flaw – he couldn’t hit curveballs.”

Ordinarily whenever a prospect gets that label he either can, or he can hit everything else well enough to make up for it. Claiming a prospect can’t hit a curveball is scoutspeak for, “I don’t care what the #s say, I don’t like him”.

Komminsk may be an exception though- he got over 1000 MLB PAs and just didn’t hit.
But I wonder if injury wasn’t involved- he fell off dramatically when he repeated AAA- at age 25 he hit .234/.333/.383 in Richmond
he went to the American Association and hit .298 /.381/.571 then fell off a cliff again- he hit for decent average bu the power was gone.

At 22 Komminsk hit .334/.433/.596 in the IL- I don’t think you can do that in that league without the ability to hit.- it was only at age 26 that he ever had a remotely comparable season again at any level

By: JC

JC — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 17:57:30 +0000

Marte was praised by both scouts and stat-heads. The numbers he put up at his age were very good. He is still younger than Yunel Escobar. What shocks me most is not his failure to succeed in the majors, but that he seems to be getting worse in the minors.

By: Johnny

Johnny — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 17:26:04 +0000

The comparison to Komminsk is interesting. Komminsk (‘the next Dale Murphy’) was a bonified AAA star but not quite a Quad A player. Marte’s considerable reputation was built prety much on his age during his year at Myrtle Beach in high A. As JC has written in AA and AAA he showed good but not great on base and power statistics. I bought into all of the stats guys lavish praise but now looking back doesn’t it seem that Marte was way overhyped? He is only 23. Who knows maybe he’ll have a career.

By: Johnny

Johnny — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 17:17:04 +0000

The adoration poured on Marte by sabermatricians, bloggers and taking a queue from the aforementioned, the mainstream press was a stark contrast to how the Braves treated him. They went down to Mississippi to get Francouer and let him stay even after it was apparent that he wasn’t ready. Marte had a very short window in the majors to prove himself. It turns out that the Braves saw something that all of us did not. I’ll have to start keeping an eye on Marte to see if he ever comes close to the promise he had.

By: Ron

Ron — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 17:16:24 +0000

I guess the real point is don’t fall in love with minor leaguers who show a lot of promise but haven’t proven themselves at the major league level. Because they refused to part with Lastings Milledge last year, the Mets may have cost themselves a world championship. I hope and expect the Braves won’t be so foolish this year.

By: Jason

Jason — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 16:31:00 +0000

I’m just speculating here. I wonder if there was some flaw in his game that the pitchers learned to exploit. It’s going back to the Murphy-Horner era, but some might remember the “can’t miss” outfielder Brad Komminsk who Hank Aaron was sure would become a big star in MLB. Komminsk had a fatal flaw – he couldn’t hit curveballs. Once pitchers figured this out, he never became much of a hitter in the majors, but he was a fairly impressive minor league hitter. I wonder if Marte has a similar flaw or if maybe he’s just totally lost his confidence at his failure to stick in the majors and maybe that is the problem.