PHOENIX -- The last time Davis Martin pitched in a regular season White Sox game, he was a pleasant surprise as a fill-in rookie starter on a 2022 team that was supposed to contend, undercut only by leaving his final start with bicep discomfort. The last time Martin pitched before Tommy John surgery last May, he had all four pitches working in an 11-strikeout masterpiece at Triple-A Charlotte, undercut only by the pain in his elbow at the end of the sixth.
Now, Martin has five pitches after adding a cutter about a week ago. And in a month's time he could be back to trying to assert his place in a White Sox rotation that should offer plenty of opportunity in the second half.
"It's tough because a lot of those guys are my friends, and yeah, I do think there's an opportunity" Martin said of watching the massive amount of turnover from the sidelines. "Do I think I have the ability to be in a rotation in the big leagues? Absolutely. But as of right now, I can't get too far ahead of myself, but just got to continue working."
Speaking at the team complex in Arizona this past weekend, Martin is coming off his first rehab outing with the ACL affiliate after throwing three live batting practices in the weeks prior.
If he wants to, Martin can pull strands from the mop of hair he's grown out while exiled to the team complex all the way down to his chin. Fit as ever, the 27-year-old now speaks of a post-playing career as a strength coach in the future tense, not as a hypothetical, even if rehab work and a young son prompted him to pause his studies toward a masters degree in human performance. Returned to game action for the first time in over 13 months, Martin struck out five in two innings of work on Friday, allowing a run. But the rousting out of the dry procedural work of rehab into the chaos of live action was Martin's biggest takeaway.
"I got ambushed first pitch fastball for a double off the wall and was like, 'Oh my gosh, OK, we're in it,'" said Martin, who did not throw another first-pitch fastball. "The pitches themselves, I feel like that process has been pretty smooth since live [batting practices]. Setting pitches up, throwing stuff off of each other, tunneling stuff off each has felt pretty natural."
It was a quick reminder of how Martin wants, and needs, to pitch to make an impactful return.
Despite seeing a velocity jump that saw his fastball touch 97 mph at times, Martin threw less than 50 percent heaters during his major league action in 2022. The way he likened his fastball to a jab has only become more common language around the organization with the arrival of Brian Bannister. The introduction of a cutter recently taught to Martin by rehab pitching coach Hiram Burgos is a method for Martin to supercharge his typically slider-heavy attack when he faces lefties, where a harder pitch will hopefully allow him to work both backdoor and up-and-in to opposite-handed hitters.
Martin is still at a stage of rehab where he's trying to give himself grace for expecting all his stuff and command to be back in full right away. But even before Burgos gave him a new weapon, Martin was trying to refine his existing ones with fellow rehabbers; chatting with Corey Knebel about his curveball, Matt Foster on his changeup.
"Pitching backwards has always been very comfortable for me," Martin said. "I feel like I get a lot of righties out. Lefties, didn't have as much of an offering, and with what the cutter is doing in professional baseball right now, it's keeping the opposite-handed hitter off balance."
Martin's recovery process is intriguing for a multitude of reasons. He a prospect depth discovery at a time where the White Sox were starved for just that sort of developmental victory, predating of wave of trades and investments of higher pedigree starting prospects. But as Drew Thorpe, Nick Nastrini and Jonathan Cannon have all made their debuts and endured various level of growing pains, Martin -- despite somehow still only having 52 days of service time -- has major league experience and success that outstrips the group.
Before his biceps barked on the last day of the 2022 season, Martin had posted a 1.99 ERA with 19 strikeouts to three walks over his previous four outings. And whether it was Martin's month of September 2022, or his proof of concept outing in Charlotte the following April, it seemed like injuries cut him down just before he got going.
But on a personal level, the reason to talk to Martin on another scorching June day in Phoenix is that if there's a pitcher's whose mind would be filled with thoughts and observations by going through such an exhaustive rehab process, it's him.
"If you have interest in how the human body works, this is a very, very interesting injury," Martin said. "You are able to lift a complete lower body like normal, but you have a ligament this big [pinches fingers] that doesn't allow you to do anything upper half. It's been fun to see what a build-up in a TJ rehab looks like. Because Tommy John is not going anywhere. You're going have to have guys rehab it for the foreseeable future. For me to have insider information on it, and to see how our strength staff has handled it, it's been really fun to pick their brains on why they do certain things. As a strength coach, after baseball, I'm going to have kids that have TJ, and it's going to be much easier to connect with them because I've gone through it."
Since ideally his strength coach days are a ways off, Martin has used that thought process to improve himself as a pitcher as well. In breaking down video of his 2022, the main area of attack identified by Sox trainers and coaches was hip mobility. Martin's delivery used to begin with a prominent "hinge," most recognizable as him bending at the waist and then slowly raising up before throwing, as a way to initiative his leg drive. It gave him a distinct look.
"Why is he sticking his ass out? Well, you see, there was a scientific reason," Martin said. "I still do the hinge, but it's not as dramatic. Now, I'm not at a 90-degree angle anymore. It's a little more upright, so it's not as bad."
While silly delivery aesthetics are always welcome, the reduction in butt-sticking is in response to side-by-side video analysis showing that his training now allows him to sit deeper in his hips than ever, and he no longer needs to so actively cue his body into doing the right thing.
"What positions I can get into which have been phenomenal," Martin said. "Fee like I drive a little better, feel like it's just easier on my arm. Because with TJ, every time you don't use your legs, you feel it in your elbow. So you get really good at using your legs as much as possible, right? I think where I used to leave my elbow out to dry, a lot of times now I feel like I'm putting my body in a really good position to protect my arm and use it all in sync."
Martin's Tommy John surgery last May was not a case of nagging pain and reduced effectiveness giving way to the inevitable. He was dealing on April 14, 2023, at a crucial point in his career when he could have established himself in the White Sox rotation and racked up service time as the roster was broken up in the second half. But as someone who pitched his way into the major league picture out of nowhere two years ago, Martin still sees opportunity, and has had a rehab process that gone smoothly enough that his spring goal to be back by the All-Star break is still on track.
Armed with a new pitch and an improved delivery, he should have as good of a shot as ever. And of course if it doesn't work out, there's always the masters program.
"'l'll probably continue to do it someday," Martin said. "I don't know when I'll get it done, but it'll get done."
