Former first-round draft pick Martin headed to the O’s
LAS VEGAS » Richie Martin highlighted a group of intriguing prospects available in this year’s Rule 5 Draft, and it didn’t take long for him to go. The 20th overall selection by the A’s in the 2015 MLB Draft, Martin was selected first overall by the Baltimore Orioles on Thursday morn-ing. fter a disappointing first three seasons in the A’s minor league system, 2018 was when Martin finally began to show some flashes of the tools that made him such a high draft pick. The infielder hit .300 at Double-A Midland with six home runs, 29 doubles, and 42 RBIs while also swiping 25 bases. But with Martin sitting low in the pecking order of A’s middle infielders that include Franklin Barreto and Marcus Semien at the big league level, as well as Jorge Mateo, Nick Allen, and Kevin Merrell in the minors, the A’s decided to keep Martin off the 40-man roster knowing he’d likely be selected in the draft.
“It’s great for Richie. It’s a good opportunity, obviously with a club that needs players, so I’m sure he’ll have every opportunity to stick,” A’s general manager David Forst said. “That’s part of the decisions we have to make, but I wish him the best of luck.”
Though the Orioles took away Martin, they basically pulled off a de-facto trade when the A’s selected infielder Corban Joseph from Baltimore in the Triple-A phase of the draft.
Joseph, 30, found success with Baltimore’s Double-A club in 2018 as he hit .312 with 17 home runs, 30 doubles, and 68 RBIs while posting a .381 on-base percentage over 122 games. He’s had a cup of coffee in the big leagues in 2013 and 2018, combining for just a .208 average over 16 career games.
“He’s a good player and will fill in somewhere,” Forst said. “It wasn’t designed for him to take Richie’s spot or anything like that, we just took some guys that we felt could play at Double-A or Triple-A and fill some holes for us.”
The A’s also selected outfielder Mark Payton of the Yankees’ system and first baseman Anthony Miller of the Indians’ system in the minor league portion of the draft.
• Forst and the rest of the A’s front office flew back to Oakland on Thursday. Though Chris Herrmann was their only acquisition of the winter meetings, Forst was pleased with the movement of discussions on both the free agent and trade front and expects those talks to advance in the coming days.
Though starting pitching remains the main need, the A’s may need to address holes at other positions before circling back to that. After former A’s reliever Jeurys Familia signed with the Mets on Wednesday night and Joe Kelly reportedly agreed to a deal with the Dodgers, the run on relief pitchers will probably delay any real action with free agent starters.
“With Jeurys signing last night, and it already sounds like some other deals are imminent, relievers tend to go quickly,” Forst said. “Starters, there’s a lot of different levels, so that may take a while longer and we’ll probably be in wait-and-see mode for a little while.”
The A’s do intend to continue utilizing the opener strategy on certain days in 2019, but that doesn’t mean Forst won’t look to add as many regular starters as possible. As they proved by using 14 different starting pitchers in 2018, there is no such thing as too much pitching depth.
“We probably still need someone considered a starter on those days, and I’m not 100 percent convinced we’ll have the overall personnel to do it consistently,” Forst said. “As of right now, we’re still looking for starters.”