Pitching coaches Brian Bannister and Ethan Katz happened to be watching video of Giants rookie Hayden Birdsong's changeup a little over a week ago.
This would have been more normal activity when they both worked for the Giants, but it quickly applied to their current employer when they had one of those wacky moments from a buddy comedy where two characters look at each other and exclaim the same thing. It's just that they were both thinking of a seam-shifted changeup rather than a late night voyage to White Castle.
"I said 'I'm thinking of one guy that could use this,'" Katz recalled. "And he said 'I'm thinking of one guy as well.' It was an a-ha moment. We both said Davis Martin."
Katz makes a lot of references to Martin's personality enabling the rapid installation of this new pitch, calling him a "free spirit" who "will do anything." As someone who has interviewed Martin a lot over the past few years, the description registers.
But since I can't transport you to the clubhouse to discover the 27-year-old right-hander's bedside manner, let's try to illustrate this point with just a GIF of Martin walking off the field after his third hitless inning of work in Oakland.
Even after over 18 months away from major league action, this is the general vibe of Davis Martin.
Martin tried out the new changeup grip once last Tuesday in Oakland, and immediately saw sharper movement than a more inconsistent variation he had been using. Katz instructed him to throw five more off a mound, but not more than that, since his start was literally the next day. While throwing six scoreless innings the following afternoon, Martin threw his new changeup 18 times, getting a called strike or a whiff on a third of the offerings (a good rate).
If this winds up being the best changeup Martin has had in his career, it might have been spurred by his rehab from Tommy John surgery.
As he was rehabbing and throwing bullpens in Arizona this summer, Martin and the White Sox noticed that the spin efficiency on his four-seamer was reduced from what he reliably produced pre-surgery. Once regularly clocking over 90 percent, and generating 17-18 inches of inverted vertical break, Martin had plateaued in low-80s for spin efficiency.
He tried a number of exercises to return the old life to the pitch, including throwing Clean Fuego balls; a hockey puck-shaped thing that wobbles helplessly if it isn't backspun perfectly. But a complete return to the delivery and release that produced his old four-seam action could not be purchased with sweat equity.
"A lot of guys have issues getting back to that full extension," said Martin, still talking about how his arm healed after TJ and not a condition advertised about on sports radio. "So it could change down the road, but as for right now that's where I'm at and it kind of cued up the cutter. I was also cutting a lot of my four-seams already, so why don't we just pre-grip and see what happens."
What happened was a high-80s cutter that has quickly become Martin's preferred way to work up and in to left-handed hitters. Even though he can run it up as high as 97 mph, the margin of error for throwing the perfect four-seamer to that quadrant went down as Martin lost some carry to it. So as someone who already supinates his wrist to the point that his slider is already his best pitch, Martin took to throwing a cutter that just bores in on the lands of lefties without needing to be perfectly commanded.
"We were already jabbing with the fastball," Martin said, using a Katz term to emphasize the fastball as a setup pitch for more capable secondaries. "Now we really want to jab with the fastball. If we go up, making sure we only do the top rail, being a little bit more picky and choosy about where we want to throw that fastball. Really being fine up at the top, on the black and set up all of our other stuff."
It's a kitchen-sink profile/approach for a former 14th-round pick who has always impressed teammates for never being afraid, nor afraid of failure at the major league level. But between his cutter, slider and curve, Martin has all this ability to spin the baseball to his glove side, and a surgically repaired right arm that seems more inclined to supinating in his delivery than ever before.
Finding a changeup to round out his new arsenal had to take this into account. That's where the video of Birdsong, the Giants rookie right-hander who distinguishes himself by also commanding multiple breaking balls, comes into play. A changeup that Martin had to actively pronate -- the opposite of what he does to rip a nasty breaking ball -- and finish to get the desired action wouldn't fit the bill.
"It is like a seam-shift [changeup]," Katz said. "It's very similar [orientation] to his cutter so it's easy for him to throw. By just getting it to where he doesn't have to manipulate the ball, he can just throw it, it's been very easy for him."
In terms of major league track record for all this working for Martin, we're up to one good outing against a not-good offense. And while he's been cleared for use as a starter, his first season after TJ means there are some basic considerations for not over-extending him for which to adhere, and the expectation of some more command speed bumps along the way.
"There's things that I've been frustrated with," Martin said. "But at the same time you look at all TJ rehab, you look at guys across the board, some guys have setbacks and things that prolong their rehab. I think I've been blessed to be able to not have a lot of setbacks. It's been a smooth transition from step, to step, to step, to step. It was a long time, but the transition from every step has been smooth."
For an underdog prospect story looking to establish himself as a major league starter, it seems like Martin missed a lot of a golden window to put down roots in an otherwise wide open White Sox rotation. But upon return, he's immediately reminded the coaching staff why they were so fond of working with him in the first place.
"His personality fit the bill [for the changeup]," Katz said. "If he was new, if it was someone like Ky Bush or something like that, I wouldn't have pushed it. I knew Davis well enough, I knew his personality that if it did work, it was going to be a home run. And if it didn't, it's no harm, no foul and we just move on to the next thing and go from there."
