BRADENTON, Fla. — The image remains seared in Chris Petersen’s mind.
In fact, the smile on his face becomes easily detectable the moment he starts describing Mason Martin’s monster day back on May 19, 2019, during a Class A Greensboro doubleheader against Lakewood at First National Bank Field.
In the first game, Martin clobbered a low-and-inside fastball for a three-run, walkoff homer to right. As an encore, Martin blasted a changeup off the equipment shed in center to help Greensboro come back from two down.
As BlueClaws center fielder Malvin Matos took a few half-hearted steps toward the wall before ultimately giving up, nearly chucking his glove out of disgust, Petersen stood in the home dugout and smiled. Martin had always impressed with his physique, approach and athleticism, but what the Pirates’ first-base prospect did that day convinced the Grasshoppers (now High-A Bradenton) hitting coach that Martin is in a class all of his own.
“Mason,” Peterson gushed over the phone recently, “is going to be a special player.”
The big question for the Pirates as it pertains to Martin, a 17th-round pick in 2017 out of Southridge High School in Kennewick, Wash., is how soon can the 21-year-old realize that potential at the major league level?
While there’s plenty to sort out with Josh Bell — his fielding, consistency and future, to name a few — there’s also legitimate cause to get excited over Martin, the Pirates’ minor league player of the year in 2019 after he produced 35 home runs, 129 RBIs and a .908 OPS in 131 games split between two levels.
“For his age, he’s really more advanced in the process,” Petersen said of Martin. “He takes ownership of the things that he’s doing.
“There’s a lot to love about this kid. Him being the minor league player of the year is not the end-all, be-all goal for him. He wants to be good. He wants to be consistently good.”
‘We get after it’
Chad Martin has always loved baseball. After a collegiate career at Texas State, Martin played some semipro ball around Washington state before giving it up and deciding to focus on his teaching career.
At that time, Martin started to get really into weight lifting. He grew up on a farm and developed a muscular physique by tossing around hay bales, and with baseball no longer an option, Martin transferred his competitiveness to natural bodybuilding.
A lifetime spent sculpting his physique has resulted in myriad awards for the older Martin, including a 2012 induction into the ABA/INBA Natural Bodybuilding Hall of Fame.
“He’s a beast, honestly,” Mason said of his dad, who will turn 50 next year.
More than that, Chad Martin has become an important part of Mason’s training regimen, resulting in an abundance of muscle and power for the smooth-swinging lefty.
“He’s been my trainer since I was 8 or 9 years old, when he started dragging me to the gym before I liked it,” Mason said. “Once I turned 14 or 15, I started falling in love with it and getting the hang of it.
“Me and my dad train together every time I’m back home. We get after it. We push each other. We love it.”
Quarantine was a special time for Chad, Mason and his younger brother, Max. With Chad home from his job as a teacher at a juvenile facility, spring training on pause and Max taking classes online, the Martin boys went to work, carving out an intense workout routine.
“I said, ‘We’re going to do something every day. We’re not going to sit here and play video games. We’re not going to watch movies.’ We can do that later in the evening, but this is what we’re going to do,’ ” Chad Martin said. “Neither one argued with me.”
Keep in mind, this was more than family bike rides or jogs around the block. Much more. Of the 106 days they were home together, Chad Martin said they took one day off — for the graduation party of Mason’s younger sister, Marlee.
“I still got some cardio in,” Chad said.
How serious was the work?
Their leg routine alone took 3 1/2 hours. Every day concentrated on a different area — back on Day 1, followed by chest, biceps, triceps, legs, shoulders and least 1,000 reps of abdominal exercises. They also varied lifting techniques, including one where they did 100 reps per lift — called “Hundos” — as Chad believes in muscle confusion or preventing your body from falling into a routine.
Natural supplements, rest and recovery were emphasized, too, as Chad Martin transformed his garage in a full-blown gym — complete with several Bowflex machines, a pulley from the ceiling and a T-bar/landmine row, in addition to more traditional equipment like dumbbells, bars and benches.
“It was hard,” Chad Martin said. “Even for me, and I love to train. There were days where it was like, ‘Is this going to end?’ But I told the boys, ‘We’re going to turn a negative into a positive.’ ”
Oh, and by the way, the lifting wasn’t all the Martin boys did. Not even close. That was just the morning.
In the afternoon, they did go on family bike rides, but Chad said they’re so competitive that it usually turned into a 40-minute sprint, the three of them exhausted by the end. They’d flip tires and run hills. For competition, they’d rotate between pickleball, basketball or tennis. Throwing and hitting were regular parts of the day.
“It seems like a lot, but I really enjoy it,” Mason Martin said. “To this day, I still feel like I don’t even work. This is all just fun to me. I enjoy the offseason training. I obviously enjoy the season more, but I just enjoy it all and embrace it.”
'A noticeable difference'
Mason’s obsession, however, was not always there, at least not as intense and focused as it is now.
At one point after the 2018 season, Chad and his wife, Heidi, didn’t recognize their son when he arrived home following his first full pro season, one that included a midseason demotion and way too many strikeouts.
The issue, the Martins would learn later, was how poorly Mason was taking car of his body — too many skipped workouts and repeated poor meal choices.
“I looked at him and said, ‘Dude, you have a worse ‘dad bod’ than me,’” Chad said. “He knew he messed up, but we had a great heart-to-heart talk and got to work. From there, he gave me 100% focus. Everything I said and threw at him, he handled.”
How different was Mason back then? Without telling his dad, Mason took pictures of himself in the mirror after that season, which they’ve since spliced together with some newer ones. Then: 230 pounds, 23% body fat. July 2020: 219 pounds, 11.1% body fat.
The transformation Martin made leading up to the 2019 season helped him immensely, for a few reasons. A high school quarterback the Pirates actually drafted as an outfielder (and who also touched 90 mph as a pitcher), Martin felt his athleticism return. He no longer felt tight at the plate, which he also credits to a yoga routine.
Feeling more balanced, Mason Martin did a better job getting his swing off quickly, buying him an extra millisecond at the plate, while also finally finding some consistency in his approach and execution.
“That offseason, he made it a point to take care of his body,” Petersen recalled. “He got into better shape. He got quicker. He lost a little bit of weight but not to where it took away power.
“He came into spring training quicker, faster, fielding better and moving more efficiently. I remember us sitting there going, ‘Wow!’ It was a noticeable difference. At that young of an age to take ownership and do that, it takes a pretty special kid.”
That sort of stability — literally and figuratively — was what resonated for Petersen the day Martin crushed walkoff homers, his ability to prioritize the matchup over mechanics.
After blasting a 1-0 fastball in Game 1, Martin later told Petersen that he anticipated something softer and adjusted his approach to avoid pulling the ball. Getting a 1-1 changeup, the home run sailed well over the center-field fence, a pitch-perfect approach and execution.
“That’s upper-level stuff,” Petersen said. “That’s Class AA or Class AAA or even big-league thinking.
“The ability to trust your swing is something I’m trying to get these guys to do so that they can focus more on competing against the pitcher instead of competing against themselves. He did a very, very good job of that.”
'He gets it now'
Whether it was a physical or mental maturation that took place, the results were noticeable. Martin went from a slash line of .220/.336/.386 with a .722 OPS in 2018 to .254/.351/.558 and (.908) a year later.
Martin was so dominant that Petersen said it became a running joke around the Grasshoppers to see how long Martin could lead the South Atlantic League in home runs, long after he had been promoted to High-A Bradenton.
(Martin finished tied for first with 23. Only five in the Florida State League had more than Martin’s 12, although he played just 49 games with the Marauders.)
The offensive output was impressive, but there’s still work to do.
Martin racked up 149 strikeouts in 442 plate appearances in 2018 and whiffed 168 times in 556 more in 2019, a combined rate of nearly 32%. That’s obviously too high, which has been the focal point of Martin’s work coming out of quarantine.
“I’m seeing the ball really well,” Martin said. “I’m just trying to continue to work on plate discipline and swing decisions.”
Having no minor league season in 2020 has been a tough hurdle to overcome, though Martin has discovered several workarounds. In Altoona, he spent time with minor league hitting coach Jon Nunnally on increasing his hand speed through various boxing drills. They also needed to set some boundaries.
A key part of this summer’s work, Martin said, has involved setting his zone — being disciplined within it and having the willingness to tip your cap on a good pitch instead of flailing at the next one to compensate.
“Not coming out of that approach if the pitcher throws me something I didn’t expect,” Martin said. “Trying to stay in that zone has been a big key for me.”
That message has seemingly trickled down from the top, as general manager Ben Cherington was asked for his impressions of watching Martin during instructional league at Pirate City and said roughly the same thing.
“Big power. Sneaky-good athlete. Sneaky-good defender. Really hard worker,” Cherington said, describing Martin. “I think he’s grown quickly. I think he has a good understanding of where he’s trying to get to with his swing. He’s working on that. Obviously he has power. Obviously he can get the ball in the air. I mean more in terms of how he gets to the right pitch, how does he get to the right decision? He’s working on that. But an exciting, young, power-hitting, first-base prospect.”
While there’s certainly some skepticism surrounding Bell’s ability to play the position, Martin hopes to avoid such questions. He’s spent a ton of time working on his throwing, specifically to second base on pickoffs and double-play turns, as well as being able to run the bases effectively.
Watching Martin, his throwing motion is fluid with zip. He’s accurate. And he moves around the bag well for someone so big. At the plate, Martin appears to have eliminated the chase in his swing and claims he’s struck out just once so far in instructional league.
“I’m trying to become a complete player,” he said.
Petersen, the Greensboro coach, has seen more of that transformation than most. He’s helped Martin adjust his swing to stay in the zone longer, guarding against a bevy of breaking balls that are sure to come. He also watched in amazement as Martin went from letting bad at-bats linger to simply journaling his thoughts in the dugout and making up for it the next time around.
One of the more serious things that stands out to Petersen about Martin, however, was something that actually doesn’t involve baseball, or at least not directly. On off-days in Greensboro, Petersen said Martin would often use his spare time to get a massage, trying to speed up his recovery and keep his body fresh.
It’s an approach not often displayed by teenagers or professional athletes in their early 20s, but one that was common for Martin as he grew up in a house where pizza and ice cream were banned for most of the year, where he began making his own healthy breakfast and carrying protein shakes to school around the ninth grade.
And, after a slight slip, Martin has seemingly got back to being that version of himself while even taking things a step or two further, realizing that Major League Baseball could be on the horizon within the next year or two.
“He gets it now,” Chad Martin said. “He knows he’s close. He’s always been extremely focused and dedicated to what he wants to do, and he knows what he wants to do. That’s the fun thing with him.”
Jason Mackey: jmackey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @JMackeyPG.
First Published: October 27, 2020, 4:13 p.m.
