White Sox pitcher Davis Martin wants to be a strength coach when he's done playing, provided he can keep his CSCS paperwork up to date.
"I need to re-certify this year by December and I've got a lot of CEUs (continuing education units) to catch up on," said Martin.
"I'm still holding him to it," said Lane Ramsey, Martin's close friend, former teammate and the director of operations at the facility where he trains in the offseason. "He's going to be the strength and conditioning coach at Pitching WRX for us whenever he's done."
Martin first mentioned it years ago when a post-playing career seemed like a necessity, and issued a polite but pointed correction when I tweeted out the wrong certification title that he holds. But Martin also reiterated it this spring, and once more this week amid pitching the best baseball of his 29 years on Earth, sitting second in MLB with a 1.62 ERA through 50 innings.
Pitching coach might be a more natural landing for a former hurler, but Martin believes the right strength coach can have just as big of an impact. While diligence about his physical routine is no small part of how the former 14th-round pick can touch 97 mph now, his argument centers around his belief that the weight room is a great place to start building the culture of a team.
"If he wanted to affect future athletes and their careers, that would be a great place to start," said Declan Cronin, former Sox pitcher now with the Rangers, who roomed with Martin this spring while rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. "Davis really understands there's a lot of pieces that go into the puzzle of making up a pitcher."
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After three post-draft innings at the complex in 2018, Martin's pro career -- and friendship with Ramsey -- began in earnest at a White Sox affiliate that doesn't exist anymore, with the rookie-level Great Falls Voyagers in Montana.
He often sat 89-94 mph with his fastball. While he showed a promising slider, and an A-ball prospect logging 144⅔ innings in his first full pro season would be notable in his own right nowadays, he ran 5.05 ERA in Kannapolis.
"I didn't have him as a coach until I was in Charlotte, but I was down in instructs and we were going to work on a curveball with him," said White Sox pitching coordinator Matt Zaleski. "I'll never forget, it was multiple side sessions and he was bounce-passing it, spiking 'em, and we kind of put it on the back burner."
"His A-ball numbers, there was nothing in there that really jumped out that this guy is going to be a major league starter that we can really bank on in the near future, or ever," said Chris Getz, who was the farm director throughout Martin's minor league journey. "Makeup is discussed a fair amount when you're talking about players and their character, their work ethic and what they bring to the table. And I mean, his makeup is ... it's very high."
Martin has yet to land the first seven-figure salary of his career, but he likes his fancy coffee. His Jura espresso machine is a source of unique joy, he and Cronin had a pour-over setup at their spring training home, and he's not hesitant to razz a beat writer for touting a mediocre canned cold brew in the clubhouse. But he also expresses the nostalgic love for a cup of Folger's of someone who remembers life in the glorified double-wide trailers that were the old Kannapolis clubhouses.
Despite his humble draft status and middling junior year numbers, Martin was the Friday night starter as a freshman for a Texas Tech team that went to Omaha. When asked last year if there was any surprise to be sharing a major league clubhouse together, Martin's former Red Raider teammate Caleb Freeman scoffed, "Nah, Davis has always been a baller."
But players often make the distinction between long-term confidence that they have the potential to have a successful career that's worth sacrificing for, and moment-to-moment confidence, which can be harder to come by as a college pick struggling in A-ball.
"It was one of those deals where it was just like, you felt like it was so far away, and all you could do is really just kind of put your head down and work," said Martin.
"Looking at him as an external observer, you'd think maybe the stuff is just not quite there," said Cronin. "Good pitcher, seems to care a lot about approach, but maybe the stuff is not there. And then you flash forward to 2021 and there's a little uptick in stuff, and he's the same guy in terms of thought process and work ethic and maybe we should take this guy a little bit more seriously."
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Martin regards the COVID shutdown as one of the major inflection points of his career, where the game getting taken away from him forced him to reflect on what really mattered to him. He wasn't an invite to the alternate site, nor even to the limited instructional league the White Sox held that fall.
"He was part of the group that I had during 2020," said Danny Farquhar, Mariners assistant pitching coach who would coach Martin at High-A Winston-Salem in 2021. "I'd see him twice a week; once to talk about pitching, and once to do mental skills with Dr. Rob Seifer, who would consult with the White Sox and then work for the [Miami] Dolphins too, he did both. It was during COVID. We weren't really doing anything. So what could we do? Just Zoom and talk baseball."
Just like he was for more than a few White Sox players during his playing days, Farquhar wound up serving as Martin's entry point for understanding what pitch metrics said was the most efficient way for him to attack.
"TruMedia basically tells you everything; which pitches to throw and in which location," Farquhar said. "Kind of a deep dive there into his arsenal and we were at that point with the White Sox where we were just throwing primarily four-seamers. Now the league, everyone's throwing two or three fastballs, which now he does."
"You almost had like a full year just to work on your body, work on your mechanics, work on your pitches, whatever the little things you need to work on, having that much time to focus on it was a blessing," said Ramsey. "Me and Davis were kind of constantly talking with Danny quite often about [analytics], and just getting a better feel for all of that. It really helped Davis and I, because then we went into spring training that next year in '21 where I would say that was the first time where as players, we had analytics thrown at us, and Davis and I already had a pretty good understanding, and we were able to optimize some stuff that we were wanting to work on."
Martin's 2021 season in the minors was more notable for how it finished than the overall numbers. A second-half upturn earned him a promotion to Double-A Birmingham, when his new level of analytical understanding was paired with the decidedly old-school stylings of Barons pitching coach and former All-Star Richard Dotson.
"You're not going to find a guy that didn't like playing for Dot," Cronin said. "He was really good at reminding you about what mattered. And while he wasn't going to talk about movement plots, or approach angles, or deploying your stuff in advantageous areas in the zone and stuff like that, and run values, he was going to remind you about what mattered about pitching."
If you've ever watched a Martin postgame interview talking about his start, there's plenty of evidence present of that time in his career.
"They came at the exact time when I needed them," Martin said. "In '21 when I had Danny, it was, 'These are the metrics you're looking for, which will put you in a good spot to be successful.' We made those shapes, and it was in a vacuum, we had those shapes. Then you get to Dot, and Dot was like, 'I don't give a shit, I want you to throw your pitches in the zone,' and that's when I started learning how to be aggressive in the zone."
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Some of the velocity gains that allowed Martin to flash 97 mph and look like a viable spot starter in 2022 were accomplished that spring in the team's biomechanical lab. It's the backstory for why he used to stick his butt out and hinge his hips before every pitch as a rookie.
"Everett Teaford, our pitching coordinator at the time said 'He's my pick to click,' and it was after just a so-so season," said Getz. "We got him up to Triple-A [that year] and I remember, I went down to Charlotte and watched him ... all of his misses when he was missing. He was never missing in the heart of the zone. It was either down, or off, or up and up. There were no misses that were at risk of doing damage."
But by the time Martin reached the upper levels of the minors, which friends, colleagues and coaches all regard as more of a steady climb than a rapid breakthrough, his stuff often got second-billing to his poise. The progression of his kitchen-sink pitch mix enabled him to make his big league debut in 2022, but he was also optioned seven separate times. When asked about it, he usually just made jokes about his accumulated airline miles.
"Outside the lines: very relaxed, calm guy, easy to deal with," said Zaleski. "I can't say enough of the relentless attack that he puts on hitters. Every once in a while, he'll need to be reminded of it. If he starts overthinking stuff, whether it be a shape or a location, or 'I wanted to try and do this and be fine to the hitters,' then you just give a little slap on the hand, 'Davis, that's not your style of pitching. Stay aggressive, don't try and get too cute.' He snaps out of it, and then goes back to work."
Cronin first met Martin on the day he was promoted to Kannapolis in 2019. He walked into an empty Intimidators clubhouse, save for Martin, who happily showed him around and helped him set up his locker. The room was empty because all of their teammates were on the field, and Martin was present because it was his start day.
"He'll talk about some of the most random stuff you can imagine in between innings," Ramsey said. "He's going to joke around, he's going to be his normal self on the day of the game. That is definitely superpower of his, where it's like, 'I'm gonna compete my my butt off.' He's such a good competitor, and you see that on a day-to-day basis, but that doesn't change his mindset about about life, or just how he's going to interact with people, even on the days of the starts."
"He has cultivated an on-field persona that's very calm and collected, and I don't really think that's by accident," Cronin said. "I really think he's worked at -- it's very cliché -- slowing the game down. I think you could look at Davis, and he could be at 50 pitches through six innings, and have the same unflappable demeanor as if he's bases loaded, one out in a really big spot."
It would feel incomplete to discuss Martin's composure, his ability to compartmentalize, and flip between game intensity and being warm to others, without acknowledging how important his faith is to him. He credits it for helping him get through the times he couldn't pitch -- COVID in 2020, and Tommy John surgery rehab in 2023, which frustratingly struck right after an 11-strikeout masterpiece in Triple-A that would have put him in line for another call-up. Just like he wouldn't overlook the role of a strength coach, Martin credits Sox team chaplain Mickey Weston for playing a big role in his career. But like everything else, he keeps it in perspective.
"Just like a baseball journey, there's a faith journey as well and I'm always trying to find that balance," Martin said. "I specifically remember in High-A going out and thinking 'God, it's all yours,' and I was like aloof throwing the ball, and I got shelled. I realized there's obviously faith in God, but there's also an effort and intensity that needs to be matched as well. It's so important to me, and I think it helps me stay present. It's helped me stay in the moment, and that I can only control as much as I can control."
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"He actually called me the next morning after [his major league debut] and we obviously talked about it, but he was just like, 'Dude, we can, we can do this,'" Ramsey said. "At the time, I was a little down mentally, just with the injury I had and everything. But he was just like, 'We can do this, it's just baseball.' That's the way he made it seem, which helped me a lot."
"My older brother was a captain on our high school football team, and then I followed suit as being a captain," Martin said. "I try to emulate his work ethic and what he did kind of trickled down. It kind of got -- to be honest -- beaten into me in high school. Our offseason football program was pretty brutal, and it was the first time that it's one of those deals where everybody's in it together, we verbally need to help push each other a little bit to make it through."
Martin was second on the White Sox in innings last year with a slightly better than average ERA, despite a meager strikeout rate and a fair amount of hard contact. He spent a healthy chunk of the past offseason training with Ramsey, now retired from playing and running PitchingWRX in Oklahoma City, where rising prospects David Sandlin and Gabe Davis also spent their winters.
The two longtime friends felt that headed into spring, Martin had six pitches that graded out average or better and taken another step in streamlining his mechanics. But even as an established steady performer, his clubhouse presence usually gets mentioned by White Sox leadership first, if only because it always runs a bit deeper than you'd expect.
"If I've got a question, if I need feedback on what we need to do better to help support, really anyone in the clubhouse, but particularly on the pitching side, Davis is a guy that I trust," Getz said. "That goes back to probably just the history I have with him, but I really trust his judgment, and I trust his judgment because there's always clarity in anything he's trying to describe, support, it's well thought-out. He's just a really solid representative of our clubhouse, but certainly the pitching group. I can tell others look up to him and there's a real impact. It's something that I don't take for granted."
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Maybe the only thing that was taken for granted was a yeoman innings-eater nearing 30, who had emerged from a more spartan era in White Sox pitching development, didn't still have another level to reach.
Unless, maybe you've already seen something like this once or twice.
"The success hasn't surprised me at all. I was expecting big things from him," said pitching coach Zach Bove. "I've been a fan of him. Because being with the Royals, we had [Michael] Wacha, [Seth] Lugo, guys who don't strike out a ton of dudes, don't maybe have great stuff, but know how to pitch.
"Davis reminds me a lot of those guys. No. 1, he knows who he is as a pitcher. He's not trying to be someone who's not. He's not trying to strike out a ton of guys, right? There's been some arsenal additions with the slider and the cutter that have been beneficial. But he just knows who he is and he can make adjustments really fast."
"Each outing is so hard to predict on a scouting report for what he's going to do to these hitters," Ramsey said. "His pitch usage this year has just been, like, perfection. It just feels like each year he's he's adding an element of his game that makes him that much better. That's why you're seeing the constant progress, is he's never kind of satisfied with with where he's at."
In line with the whole theme where he just never quite stops improving, Martin is now actually striking out a bunch of dudes. His success is less of a peripheral-defying display of sequencing, command and guile when he's struck out 33 of 98 hitters faced over his last four starts. Or maybe it still is, and this is representing heights of what can be accomplished with such ingredients put to their best use. No one actually really knows.
"There's something that he brings to the table with competitiveness, the aptitude and the quality of the stuff is good enough that he's maximizing it," Getz said. "It's beyond, whether it be our projection systems, public projection systems, other teams', he's outperforming. What's under the hood? The most obvious thing is the makeup of the player."
Does that mean that the 29-year-old, former 14th-round pick eating innings on a team that was supposed to be rebuilding is actually a long-term piece of a future contender.
"I hope it is," Getz said. "It looks like it can be."
If Martin put his head down and went to work seven years ago in Kannapolis when his dream was too far away to conceive of, it would have to be a little surreal to look up and see he's pitching as well or better than anyone in the best baseball league in the world. So, he just doesn't. What good would it do?
"I mean yeah, I think things are going well," Martin said. "we all talked about how to segment each start into its own thing. You can do everything you can to get ready for that one start. When you're done with it, you go on to the next one. You learn from that one on Day 1, we give ourselves about 24 hours to digest, and then it's on to the next game."
