Astros: Francis Martes and David Paulino have things to fix

Martes’ control issues

As the No. 1 prospect in the Astros farm system, Martes had extremely high expectations coming into his major league debut despite struggling at Triple-A Fresno this season. Coming into his debut, he had a 5.29 ERA with a 2.10 WHIP through eight starts with the Grizzlies.

The strikeouts were still there, with 38 strikeouts in 32.1 innings of work, but control was a huge issue. He gave up more walks than strikeouts in his Triple-A stint, averaging 7.79 walks per nine innings of work.

That issue of control did not stay in California when he was called up to the big leagues. Through four appearances, Martes has thrown 11 walks in 16.1 innings of work, walking batters 14.7 percent of the time.

Fixable?

However, control can be fixed. What makes Martes a top prospect is the raw swing-and-miss stuff he throws. With a fastball that averages 95.6 mph and a mid-eighties slider, he is already fooling hitters. Striking out opposing batters 21.3 percent of the time, Martes has 16 strikeouts in his 16.1 innings of work. Also, with a batting average against of .254, he has shown that opposing hitters have a difficult time of hitting against him.

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Martes’ last start against the Seattle Mariners is a perfect picture of his struggles early on. Lasting only two innings, he gave up two earned runs on only two hits while walking four and striking out three. The problem through two was his high pitch count. When Astros manager A.J. Hinch pulled Martes to begin the third inning, he was already at 63 pitches, throwing strikes only 54 percent of the time.

Overall, Martes’ major league stats do not look great. He has a 5.51 ERA with a 1.59 WHIP through four appearances, three of which were starts. However, the electric fastball/slider combination and high strikeout potential put his control problems on the backburner.

Paulino’s home run issues

In his second stint with the major league club, Paulino has shown an increased level of comfort at the major league level this season. After throwing three walks in seven big league innings last season, he is attacking hitters more with only seven walks in 29 innings. That also has increased his strikeout rate, striking out 26.6 percent of batters faced.

However, with that said, his comfort inside the strike zone has hurt him this season. With a walk percentage only at 5.5 percent, Paulino is allowing hitters to hit .300 against him this season, giving up 36 hits so far this season.

Fixable?

As a fly ball pitcher, the amount of contact Paulino is giving up is a major problem, especially in a home ballpark like Minute Maid Park. For example, in his last start against the Oakland A’s, Paulino gave up a career-high seven earned runs on seven hits and four walks in four innings of work. Of those seven hits, four of them left the yard, including two home runs by A’s slugger Khris Davis.

Take away his start against the A’s and Paulino has done much better with the home run numbers. Before this start, he had only given up four home runs in 25 innings of work. However, when you combine a low-to-mid-nineties fastball with a flyball percentage of 50.6 percent, bad things are likely to happen. So far this season, Paulino has a fly ball-to-home run percentage of 19 percent.

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Paulino has the stuff to be a very good pitcher in this league. However, while he keeps continuously throwing hittable pitches in the strike zone, he will continue to get hit very hard.

***Stats from Baseball-Reference***