Number 62: Orelvis Martinez
This is the first appearance on the Baseball Prospectus list for Martinez, although he was ranked #96 on Baseball America’s list in 2021. He’s #75 on that list for 2022.
Signed in 2018, Dominican-born Martinez is just 20 years old. The upside for the infielder projects him to have a powerful bat and a strong arm from the left side of the infield. To that point, he hit 28 home runs across two leagues in 98 games in 2021. Martinez has experience at both third base and shortstop, but in 550 innings at short last year, he played to a respectable .916 fielding percentage. Overall, it was a strong showing for a guy who did not log any professional 2020 at-bats due to COVID-19 fallout.
Baseball Prospectus top 101 prospects list includes four prominent Blue Jays: Gabriel Moreno, Jordan Groshans, Orelvis Martinez and Nate Pearson.
Ending the year at A+ ball, expect Martinez to appear in AA New Hampshire this year. If he continues to work on fielding and limiting his strikeouts (113 in 98 games) and adjusting to higher levels of pitching, Martinez could fit in very well with the Guerrero-Bichette-Groshans infield of the future.