Entering the 2025 season, the Toronto Blue Jays face several challenges, but a few specific issues consistently bubble to the surface.
Some of the biggest worries around this team are as follows:
1. This team lacks offensive punch and is specifically low on the type of power that allows for quick-strike run scoring.
2. A high percentage of the Blue Jays’ best players are nearing free agency, leaving the team with minimal medium or long-term direction.
3. While Toronto has plenty of young MLB-ready players, most project to be complementary pieces rather than true building blocks.
There is one player in the organization whose presence addresses each of those worries to some degree: Orelvis Martinez.
Martinez has legitimate top-end power, he’s sat high on prospect lists before, he’s young enough (23) that there’s room for him to develop further, and he’s off to an excellent start in his Grapefruit League season.
His 80-game suspension prevented him from playing more than one game during a 2024 season when the Blue Jays prioritized evaluating young players in the second half. That suspension was a blow to the player’s development and the organization’s evaluation process, but it also created a situation where no one saw Martinez take his lumps at the MLB level the way players like Addison Barger, Joey Loperfido, and Davis Schneider did.
What we’re left with is a player who is widely considered to be talented and roughly MLB-ready and who looks exciting right now on a squad that needs some offensive juice — and seems to have some playing time up for grabs.
That’s an intriguing setup, but it ignores an inconvenient truth for Martinez: It is very difficult to find a logical defensive fit for him on the Blue Jays right now.
Given the way the past two seasons have gone in Toronto, most fans are sick of hearing about the importance of defensive value and would like to see someone of their team hit the ball over the wall, run-prevention consequences be damned. It’s an understandable mindset, but the Blue Jays’ front office does not share it.
Let’s assume that Martinez continues to hit well throughout the spring, and it seems like he should have a spot in Toronto’s lineup. Where does he go?
Any outfield spot – No. Martinez hasn’t logged a single outfield inning as a pro, and the Blue Jays are locked in with Anthony Santander, Dalton Varsho, and George Springer when everyone’s healthy. It’s not inconceivable that Martinez could be converted to the corner outfield someday, but it would be tough to expect him to pick up that position with less than a month left until the regular season.
First base/Shortstop/Catcher – No. Vladimir Guerrero Jr./Bo Bichette/Obvious reasons.
Second base – Not in 2025, barring injury. Martinez has played more games here than any other over the past two seasons, but the Blue Jays have handed the position to Andrés Giménez for 2025, and he’s under team control through 2030.
Third base – Maybe, but not right away, and probably not full-time. This seems plausible, considering Martinez’s experience at the position, but the Blue Jays seem to prefer him at second, given his playing time distribution in recent years. When he was called up last year, manager John Schneider said he’d play second and “maybe a little bit of third.”
That hints at where the team saw him then, and not much has changed since. Third base incumbent Ernie Clement also offers a solid floor with his above-average glove and excellent contact ability. He provided 2.2 fWAR last season in approximately three-quarters of a full season.
Given the difference between Clement and Martinez’s defensive upside, the 23-year-old would have to produce a great deal with the bat as a rookie to depose the veteran. It’s not an impossible scenario to envision, but it would probably take Clement struggling significantly in the early going.
All of that means that if you want to plug-and-play Martinez, the clearest route is to throw him in the DH spot.
That might seem like an interesting idea because of his raw power, but there are a couple of significant issues.
First, the bar to be an effective designated hitter is high. Martinez may be talented, but his projections generally don’t come close to league-average production at the position last season (.742 OPS and 108 wRC+).
|
Projection System
|
OPS |
WRC+ |
|
FGDC |
.689 |
94 |
|
Steamer |
.697 |
97 |
|
ZiPS |
.678 |
91 |
|
ATC |
.672 |
89 |
|
The Bat X |
.664 |
87 |
|
OOPSY |
.732 |
107 |
Martinez is a tough player to project because of his tumultuous 2024, and these forecasts look a touch pessimistic, but it’s safe to say it’s not fair to expect he’d be a viable DH in 2024.
The Blue Jays also have an internal candidate in Wagner, who’s a bit more experienced, has a better offensive track record at triple-A than Martinez, and adds left-handed balance to the lineup. Martinez would almost certainly hit lefties better, but a young player of his calibre isn’t sticking around to be the short side of a DH platoon.
Even if we assume Martinez is a better option than Wagner, it’s worth remembering that MLB teams almost never slot rookies into DH roles. Since 2002 — when FanGraphs made positional hitting splits available — just 17 rookies received at least 300 plate appearances with DH as their primary position.
There are success stories like Yordan Alvarez, but in the vast majority of cases, teams want to let their young players establish a defensive foundation and move them to less and less challenging positions — and possibly DH — as their careers progress.
Starting them at DH and figuring out a defensive home from there is not impossible, but it’s not ideal. Martinez has already logged 66 games as a designated hitter in his pro career, which is probably more than the Blue Jays would like.
The idea of getting another power bat into the lineup in a win-now season may seem appealing, but Martinez’s route to everyday at-bats is cloudy with the Blue Jays right now. His best path at the moment seems to be at DH, which asks a lot of his bat while preventing a glove already shrouded in some uncertainty from developing further.
There are plenty of ways that could change, ranging from a Giménez injury to defensive progress at third base, to struggles from Clement or an underperforming lineup being so desperate for a spark that using Martinez as a DH becomes more palatable than it appears today.
For now, though, it doesn’t look like the power-hitting youngster is as close to making a 2025 impact as his impressive showing early in the spring indicates.
