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Minor Moves: Mason Martin Assigned to Bristol

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The Pittsburgh Pirates assigned first baseman Mason Martin to Bristol on Friday afternoon. Martin had been playing with the West Virginia Power, but it now appears that he will finish the season with one of the short-season teams. As of right now, the assignment to Bristol is just a paper assignment because their season doesn’t begin until June 19th. Jesse Medrano, who was with Bradenton, has replaced Martin on the roster.

Martin destroyed pitching in the GCL last year, posting the third best OPS in league history. He made the jump over two levels this year to the South Atlantic League, where he was one of the youngest players in the league. He did not fare well after a decent start, hitting .200/.302/.333 in 45 games, with 18 walks and 62 strikeouts in 175 plate appearances.

The bright side to this is that Martin got experience against advanced pitching, which he wouldn’t have faced if he stayed in Extended Spring Training. Assuming he goes to Bristol, they play 68 games and he will be seeing better pitching than he faced last year in the GCL. If he succeeds, then he will likely be back in West Virginia to begin 2019 and will still be a teenager for the first two months of the season.

Medrano played sparingly in his two weeks with Bradenton, going 0-for-8 with four strikeouts in five games.

John Dreker
John Dreker
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball. When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.

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