Blue Jays prospect Orelvis Martinez flashes power, potential with Bisons

Orelvis Martinez is used to being the young guy on a team. He’s been one of the youngest players at every level of the minor leagues he’s played at since joining the Blue Jays organization in 2018. The 21-year-old slugger is currently the youngest player on the Bisons and one of the youngest players in all of Triple-A.

“I know it’s an honor to be this young up here,” Martinez said through interpreter Justin Echevarria in a recent interview with Bisons.com. “I don’t take it lightly. I know that if not for the work that I put in that I wouldn’t be here.”

Martinez is currently ranked by MLB Pipeline as the Blue Jays number two prospect. The young phenom is motivated by the fact he’s such a highly regarded prospect.

“It’s something I don’t shy away from,” he said. “I welcome it. It’s something I’ve wanted my whole life and now I just want to show what I can do.”

Bisons manager Casey Candaele believes getting to Triple-A as a 21 year old is a huge accomplishment – and that Martinez has the ability to achieve much more.

“He’s a talented young player,” Candaele said. “He’s 21-years old and he’s in Triple-A, which is a feat and an accomplishment in and of itself. He’s got a lot to learn, but the talent is there and the ability to do damage is there obviously from his past two seasons in Double-A where he hit a lot of home runs. There’s some things that he needs to refine, especially defensively, but he’s willing to work, so we’ll do what we need to do to try and make him the best player he can be.”

“He’s not intimidated by any means,” Candaele continued. “He wants to do better. As with any young player, they’ll go through some ups and downs, some growing pains from being at a level that’s one step from the best in the world. He’s highly capable of handling it and doing it. It’s just a matter of getting used to it and settling in.”

Martinez learned the game of baseball growing up in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

“Mostly from my father,” he said. “He was one of the biggest influences in my life. Some of my earliest memories are being three or four years old with my mother and father and hitting beans, hitting whatever, outside.”

The Blue Jays signed him as an international free agent in 2018 when he was just 16 years old. The next season, he played for the Blue Jays Gulf Coast League Affiliate.

“It was definitely a big learning curve my first year, from the language and getting used to the United States in general, but it was one that taught me a lot,” he said.

In 40 games for the GCL Blue Jays, Martinez slashed .275/.352/.549 with seven home runs. He believes the biggest challenge he faced in his first season was learning to deal with the grind of being a professional baseball player.

“Just playing baseball day in and day out,” he remembered. “It’s more mental. Doing that day in, day out grind. I had some good mentors early on coaching wise that helped get me through mentally.”

The 2020 minor-league season was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, so Martinez returned to the Dominican Republic, where he worked hard to keep his baseball skills sharp.

“I had access to the academy there, so I was there training,” he explained.

In 2021, Martinez slashed .261/.345/.549 across two levels at Vancouver and Dunedin – and showed his immense power potential, belting 28 home runs. Last season, Martinez continued to display his power at Double-A, by setting the New Hampshire Fisher Cats single-season home run record, blasting 30 long balls.

“I feel proud and honored to do it,” he said of setting the Fisher Cats record. “It’s a reflection of all the hard work I put in.”

“It’s definitely not easy,” he said of his power stroke, “but one thing I fall back on is my routine that I adopted when I became a pro and I’ve never wavered from that.”

Originally drafted as a shortstop, Martinez has played both shortstop and third base in the minors – and he’s recently added second base to his defensive repertoire.

“Once I signed here I knew I had to be able to be able to play different positions,” he said. “Honestly, every day, with the early work I’ve been doing I feel more comfortable. But like anything, it’s an adjustment.”

One area Martinez has focused on at the plate is increasing his contact rate and cutting down on strikeouts.

“I do a lot of work on my routine in the cage and a lot of work with my swing decisions off the hack attack (pitching) machine,” he said. “Whether it’s fastballs, breaking balls, whatever I can do to move the ball around and force me to make decisions. It’s been one of the biggest helps for me.”

He believes he’s improved in other aspects of the game as well.

“One area is being a professional,” he explained. “Knowing what I have to do day in and day out and making sure my work stays consistent. I know if my work stays consistent, I can handle the ebbs and flows of the season.”

Bisons hitting coach Matt Hague was also Martinez’s hitting coach last season in New Hampshire. He’s seen the young prospect’s improvement over the last two seasons first hand.

“He’s a great dude and he wants to be good,” Hague said. “He has a skillset and he can do things that other guys just can’t do. He’s just continued to learn about himself. I think he wants to be really good and I think that counts for a lot when guys that have that mentality. He’s fun to work with. He’s open, he’s young, and he’s hungry. It’s really good for him to be in this environment too with some of the guys we have on this club.”

Now just one rung away from realizing his major-league dream, Martinez admits he’s envisioned what it will be like to step onto a big-league field for the first time – but he also understands there’s still work to be done to achieve his dream.

“If I’m honest with myself, I think about it quite a bit,” he smiled. “But I know I’ve got to take care of business here first.”