The Show Notes #31: It Is Now or Never For Ernesto Martínez Jr.
Ernesto Martínez Jr. is fighting for a spot on the New York Yankees 25-man roster with a unique style of play that might remind some of a former first baseman who won seven Gold Gloves
When word got out that Ernesto Martínez Jr. was not going to represent Cuba in the 2026 World Baseball Classic (WBC), I was extremely disappointed. I quickly transitioned to a mellow state of mind after arriving at the conclusion that he was prioritizing a non-roster invite (NRI) to Spring Training from the New York Yankees. After all, no one was going to be more saddened than Martínez Jr. himself for missing an opportunity to represent Cuba in professional baseball’s premier international tournament. The towering 6’6’’ first baseman was one of the stars on Cuba’s U-12 to U-16 teams during the mid-2010s as a prolific two-way player before defecting to France with his father Ernesto Martínez Sr., a longtime Cuban National Series veteran. Cuba has a long history of making a name for itself in baseball’s international tournaments of the 20th century such as the Baseball World Cup and Pan American Games, and I’m sure Martínez Jr. was eager to extend this history at the 2026 WBC in a Cuban uniform alongside his other countrymen. The 26-year-old knows the clock is ticking on his chance to wear a MLB uniform and his decision to prioritize his MLB career right now could give him another chance to represent Cuba in the 2029 WBC as a fully established major leaguer.
Martínez Jr. is one of the few active players in MiLB/MLB from Latin America willing to claim his Haitian heritage on record, as the anti-Haitianism embedded in professional baseball forces many active players to flatten their identities and exist under aliases. During an phone interview for a feature I wrote on the Cuban-Haitian polyglot during the 2025 MiLB season he expressed an enthusiastic and explicit willingness to represent Haiti should the opportunity ever arise in the near or far future, and that is a big deal. While many individuals scoff at the idea of Haiti assembling a baseball team that could compete on the international stage, a Haitian baseball federation would be able to assemble a roster that has enough talent to qualify for the World Baseball Classic in 2029 or 2032 if one actually existed. I look forward to seeing how Martínez Jr. fares during the 2026 MiLB/MLB season, because he has the talent to be a productive first baseman who is above-average in all facets of the game.
The Cuban-Haitian first baseman possesses an unique skill set that is eerily reminiscent of Vic Power’s, an Afro-Puerto Rican first baseman who won seven Gold Gloves and displayed above-average base running (49 3Bs/45 SBs) for individuals in his position group during the 1950s and 1960s. Selected as an All-Star in four different seasons and one of the very few players to ever steal home twice during a game, Power was very blunt during his interactions with press in the clubhouse and gained notoriety for consistently using humor to combat racism off the field. He even pioneered the one-handed style of defense used by a majority of first basemen across professional baseball in the present day. The Holguín Globetrotter can operate in a similar role as a glove-first 1B, except with more power and better base stealing technique. Despite being 6’6’’ and weighing nearly 260 pounds, Martínez Jr. is an above-average athlete with loose hips, great hands, and advanced dexterity. His range, internal clock, and creativity at the cold corner are good enough to put him in the running to snag a few Gold Gloves if he plays enough to be considered a full-time player in MLB. He is also an above-average base runner with a history of swiping bags throughout his minor league career.
Despite having an uncommon combination of tools, the 26-year-old has yet to make his MLB debut because of constant injuries and red flags in his offensive profile. He’s only appeared in more than 100 games once out of his five years playing full-season baseball in MiLB. Martínez Jr.’s biggest flaws when standing in the batter’s box are a profound bat wrap in his pre-swing setup and a habit of refusing to swing at hittable offerings. While the he has the bat speed to mitigate the negative effects of the bat wrap to some degree, his ability to make contact (especially on the inside half of the dish and in the upper quadrants of the strike zone) would improve drastically with a swing change that reduces or eliminates the aforementioned bat wrap without diminishing his plus-plus raw power and/or his decent barrel accuracy. His bat wrap also has a negative effect on his ability to anticipate when to swing at pitches, which hinders his ability to utilize his plus-plus raw power to an effective degree consistently. He frequently hesitates to pull the trigger on hittable offerings that he could drive for extra-base hits.
Martínez Jr. has a prime opportunity to address these issues as a member of the Yankees organization, as New York is one of the best in the business getting the most from its hitters. If the Cuban-Haitian slugger cannot establish himself as a productive bench bat in The Bronx, there are other MLB teams that could give him an opportunity to see if he is a worthwhile late bloomer to some degree. The Marlins, Nationals, Rockies, Twins, and Diamondbacks are clubs where he would be a viable candidate to accrue innings at the cold corner. If a lack of success in Triple-A and/or MLB forces him to look for opportunities overseas, he has the high floor of a solid everyday player and the massive ceiling of a superstar in Japan or Korea.