Martinez is very big (6’6”, 225 pounds), very strong, and very raw at the plate, as befits a 19-year-old. (He’s also trilingual, which doesn’t really count for anything but is pretty cool.) He acquitted himself well in Dominican ball last year, tallying 29 hits in 113 at-bats, including thirteen for extra bases. Across 148 plate appearances, he struck out 31 times and drew 30 walks, good for a .326 True Average (TAv). Clearly in need of a greater challenge, Martinez was brought stateside and scuffled, as he continues to do this year. In the DSL, he struck out in 20.9 percent of his plate appearances; through Saturday, this year he’s whiffing at a 33.9 percent clip. The walk rate has fallen from 20.1 percent to a still solid 11.6 percent. His isolated power has plummeted from .177 all the way down to .049. For all his strength, Martinez has yet to hit a home run in a game on U.S. soil.

That’s only a matter of time, though. Martinez possesses easy 70-grade raw power (along with a plus throwing arm) with a chance to add even more strength as he matures. He hits from the left side, displaying an open stance with loud hands. He’ll wave the bat back and forth as the pitcher winds up before going into a crouch and unleashing a big leg kick. When he plants his right foot, the stance closes up, and he lets rip with a powerful swing. Batting practice home runs are the easiest home runs to hit. Even so, this kind of power is eye-opening:

The general profile calls to mind a pair of other long-developing prospects to grace the Milwaukee system in recent years: Monte Harrison and Demi Orimoloye. Martinez is even taller than those two, and has a chance to wind up with the most raw power (albeit without as much speed). Still a teenager, he’s also just as unrefined as were Harrison and Orimoloye when they were drafted. In other words, patience will be key when evaluating Martinez’s development over the next several seasons. Harrison battled through a pair of injury-filled years before his 2017 breakout (he’s swatted 18 home runs in Double-A this year, incidentally, but is also closing in on 200 strikeouts). Likewise, it wasn’t until this season that Orimoloye tasted his first real success outside of rookie ball (.301 TAv in the Arizona League in 2015; .278 TAv across 245 plate appearances earlier this year in Appleton). If any of these players make a significant impact at the major league level, it won’t be for another several years.

Announced as an outfielder and first baseman, the Brewers have Martinez playing first base exclusively in Arizona, which is a little perplexing considering his strong arm (Martinez was once clocked at 93 mph on the mound). Scouting reports from the time of his signing cited shaky footwork in the outfield; perhaps he’ll get more looks in the grass down the line, or perhaps he’ll continue to add mass to his frame and stay firmly planted in the infield. In either case, the bat will be his carrying tool, and it has a long way to go (particularly if he stays at the bottom of the defensive spectrum). If Martinez has a higher ceiling than most, it follows that his journey towards that ceiling will take plenty of time.

There’s some thoroughly unscientific evidence to suggest that he may get there: Martinez’s father, Ernesto Martinez, Sr., played eight seasons in the Cuban National Series for the Sabuesos de Holguín, winning the championship and batting .284/.398/.445 in 2002. Then he moved to France, where he’s played 11 seasons for the Templiers de Sénart in the French Division Élite. 44 years old, he was still catching at the start of the year, evidently content to keep playing until he no longer can.

Bloodlines can be overblown in baseball; for every Vlad Jr., there’s a Koby Clemens. But they’re not nothing (See: Griffey, Bonds, Ripken, etc.). Martinez Jr. grew up around the game. Brewers scouts raved about his baseball IQ when he signed. He dominated a 15U World Tournament in 2014, hitting .436 and smacking two doubles in the championship game (he helped Cuba beat Brice Turang and Team USA). A few years later, both Ernestos represented France during their qualifying run for the 2017 World Baseball Classic (dad hit well, but France fell short of qualifying; “Ernestico” mostly just warmed the bench). Keep an eye on his development over the next few years. With loud tools and a strong pedigree, he’s an easy kid to dream on.

2015 Top 10:

2017 Top 10:

(Note: the 2-8 scale used in 2015 is considered a shorthand version of the more popularly seen 20-80 scale that was used in 2017. The grades all still mean the same thing, with a 5 and a 50 being the equivalent of major league average, and a grade like 4+ can be considered the same as a 45).

Okay, hold on just a minute here. The almost universally praised 2017 system boasts six prospects who received OFPs of 60 or better. And the 2015 system, which was considered to be anywhere from the bottom 10 to one of the worst farm systems in baseball, featured…eight prospects who received OFPs of 60 or better? So in terms of OFP within the top 10, it could be said that this year’s system has actually taken a step back from where it was two years ago.

While this year’s top 10 may not offer as much promise as the 2015 list, an obvious distinction can be made between the two. Two years ago, the only player on the list who had even sniffed the AA level was Tyrone Taylor, who received a five game trial at the level at the end of the 2014 season. In 2015, BP’s scouting staff saw some eight players with the potential to be first division contributors, but all of them were years away from contributing at the big league level (two years later, just three of those players – Orlando Arcia, Jorge Lopez, and Tyler Wagner – have made their big league debuts). The 2015 list featured five players that had yet to even make it to full season ball, including one, Gilbert Lara, who hadn’t even played a game as a professional. With that much future projection involved, the 2015 top 10 was an inherently risky group.

Two years later, all but two of those players (Wagner via trade, Miguel Diaz via Rule 5 Draft pick) remain in Milwaukee’s system. With the exception of Arcia, who is no longer prospect-eligible, all of the 2015 class has fallen out of top 10 consideration. That speaks to the inexact science of scouting minor leaguers that are not in close proximity to The Show; while all those players still can boast some combination of promising tools, some have been beset by injury (Taylor Williams, Monte Harrison, Devin Williams), and others by inconsistent-to-poor performances (Jorge Lopez, Kodi Medeiros, Taylor, and Lara).

The 2017 list, on the other hand, includes five players who already have experience at the AA level or higher, and each player who made the list spent time in full season ball last year. For players like Lewis Brinson and Josh Hader, who finished last year in AAA, it’s no longer so much a question of “if” those players will make it to the big leagues, but “when” and “how much value will they provide”. That wasn’t necessarily the case in 2015, when top prospects Arcia and Taylor were still waiting to prove they could make the jump from high-A to AA, which is generally considered one of the most challenging developmental hurdles in a minor league player’s career. So while the ceiling for the 2017 group in terms of OFP may not be as high as the 2015 group’s was thought to be, the floor should be far less abstract; Brinson, Hader, Luis Ortiz, Brett Phillips, and Mauricio Dubon all appear likely to provide some modicum of MLB value in the near to mid-term future.

Ultimately, any given top prospect list is little more than a snapshot in time. The 2015 list appeared to be stuffed with potentially above-average MLB talent. Fast forward two years, and the only MLB contributions from that group are less than 35 combined innings from Wagner and Lopez and a .217 TAv from Arcia in 55 games, with major hurdles still facing the other seven players from that ensemble as they attempt to make it to the big leagues. The most recent top 10, on the other hand, figures to graduate a handful of potential impact players to the big leagues as soon as this season; though as BPMilwaukee editor-in-chief Nicholas Zettel discussed earlier this week, actualizing those 60 and 70 OFPs at the MLB level is a much rarer and more difficult task altogether.