Talk:Pedro Martínez

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[edit] Spelling

Shouldn't Martinez be spelled without an accent on the i? In Spanish, the accent is always implied to be on the second-to-last syllable; when it is so, it is not written. Unless I hear something else, I will change it soon. --Locarno 19:12, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've never seen his name with an accent. The Mets website, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and Baseball-reference.com don't use one, from a quick google survey. 1 --Tothebarricades.tk 20:56, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The name is spelled correctly. In Spanish it is NOT ALWAYS implied the accent on the second to last syllable. It is if the last letter of the word is n, s or a vowel. With this rule, Martines, for example, (ending with an s) wouldn't have an accent, whereas Martínez does. This rule might be a little bit harder to understand, specially because in Latin American Spanish both words would sound the same.
Nevertheless the í character does not exist in English, and it would make sense if english speaking wikipedians want to have their wikipedia without foreign elements. But the name would be spelled incorrectly. Dominican 9 July 2005 11:36 (UTC)

[edit] Small change

It's a small change, but under Met's Years, the followed started that section off: "After Boston's delirious World Series triumph in 2004, Martínez again became a free agent and signed a 4-year, $53 million contract with the New York Mets." I have removed "delirious" from that sentence, as it does not seem appropriate for an encyclopedia entry. -- Ubergenius 14:19, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Children??

The article claims that Pedro has 2 children from previous relationships... Is there any citation or reference to backup this claim? I have been an adament Pedro fan since he was in Montreal (I wanted to play professional baseball since I was 7, but was always shorter than my peers, and he became an inspiration because of his stature combined with amazing talent), and live in Boston, and as such followed him closely during his tenure with the Sox, and I've never even heard this mentioned, even in passing, in all those years. -- Ubergenius 13:49, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] So which is it?

"grabbing Zimmer's head, violently threw the coach to the ground (it could also be said that Martinez simply sidestepped Zimmer and his own momentum toppled him to the ground)."

From the perspective of someone who studied martial arts for 14 years, it looked like the latter to me.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.182.124.3 (talk) 22:31, 5 October 2005

there is some caused downward inertia by Pedro, but i'd say the ratio of throw-to-topple is about 30/70. that game was awesome. attack on a 72-year-old man or not, was he supposed to just stand there? he did not have a leverage advantage with the weight disparity.--Nod 05:47, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deletions

I cut the part about Martinez "rejuvenating the Boston sports scene" because the Red Sox had won the AL East as recently as 1995, and the Patriots were in the 1996 Super Bowl and the 1997 playoffs.

I cut the part about Martinez not getting MVP votes from two "New York" sportswriters because the claim is untrue.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.86.192.97 (talk) 07:56, 3 December 2005

[edit] Tall tales

Pedro Martinez is commonly assumed to be less than his "official" height of 5-11. This knowledge enhances appreciation of his remarkable accomplishments; it does not impugn them. The lower his literal stature, the greater his pitching stature. If you don't like the words "supposed" or "generously," don't just delete them, think of something else. Accurate phraseology should reflect the enhancement in Martinez's listed height. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.131.199.55 (talk • contribs) 22:31, 14 May 2006.

I have no interest in either enhancing or impugning his accomplishments. We're supposed to edit content with neutral points of view and only include material which is verifiable. If it's true that he is shorter than his listed height, just find a reliable, published source as a reference and post it. Check out the Wikipedia policy on verifiability. Veronique 06:53, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
I deleted the last change for a coupe of reasons. First, saying a fact is "commonly assumed" is an example of weasel_words, which wikipedia style says should be avoided. Second, the source given to support the assertion at jockbio.com[1] doesn't go as far as saying it's "commonly assumed" but that "many believe" Martinez is shorter than 5-11 — more weasel words. If we could find a quote or an article from someone who comes out and says Martinez is shorter than listed, that would probably work, but this seems like using hearsay to spread hearsay and puffing it up. Veronique 22:46, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Not POV to say Pedro is one of the top pitchers in baseball history

...especially if the article supports it, which this one does. Only eight pitchers have ever won three or more Cy Young awards - Clemens, Johnson, Carlton, Maddux, Koufax, Palmer, Seaver and Pedro. Pretty good company there. That alone is probably enough to qualify him as one of the top pitchers ever. He's 29 strikeouts short of 3,000, so he should pass that litmus test in a couple of weeks. He has an astoundingly low career WHIP of 1.02 - the only non-deadball era pitcher in the top 15. There's really not much room for argument, and I don't see anyone seriously suggesting he isn't among the best ever. --Veronique 18:08, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Redundancy

There's a bunch of redundancy in this article, such as two mentions of the 12-8 defeat of Cleveland. I am spreading myself too thin to take on this collection of edits, but home someone else will. --Matchups 02:03, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] An exaggeration

It says early in the article along the lines of...He relies on guile now, but still can reach the mid 90's if needed. This is wrong. I'm a die hard met fan and love pedro, but the man cant throw that fast anymore...he can throw in the low 90's, but not above 91-92. I'm going to change this... -Dwslassls

As I long-time Pedro fan (since Montreal), I have tried to follow him even after departing Boston, where I could see him daily. And in a game shown on ESPN just this year (much earlier in the year, April or May) he hit 94 in the early innings.
While I fully realize he can no longer hit 97-98 that he used to be able to, and can also no longer hit the consistent 94-96 that he used to in his prime, he definately is able to reach back for a little extra in times of need (or, at least, was able to earlier this season... he has sustained injuries, which may have changed things recently). I will not make an changes to the article, as I have not seen him pitch in almost a month, but to anyone that does watch him pitch regularly, can anyone verify that he has managed to lose this ability altogether? Ubergenius 14:44, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

"...can anyone verify that he has managed to lose this ability altogether?"

I am a die-hard Mets fan who is in awe of Pedro Martinez, I have watched most of Pedro's starts since he signed with them, and I can verify it. For the past two years, his fastball has usually averaged 86-87 mph (sometimes slower than Tom Glavine's), and has been as low as 82 mph. At least, the announcers working the game insisted that an 82 mph pitch was a fastball. (In other words, his "fastball" is often slower than many pitchers' changeups, and his changeup is in the 70s.) I've actually done pitch counts with speeds, and averaged the "fastballs." When he needs some giddyup, he can get the ball up to 90, 91 tops. "Guile" (see previous writer) is definitely the word for what he lives off of these days. Never in the history of the game has a pitcher struck out more men with less velocity.

I do not recall the game in early 2006 one writer cited, in which Pedro got up to 94 mph (I probably missed that one), but that was, in any case, a huge anomaly. Martinez actually threw the ball harder in some of his last, ineffective starts (e.g., against the Pirates) with the Mets in '06, than he had during all of 2005 and 2006 previously (excepting the above-mentioned game), but since he was then suffering from all manner of lower-body ailments, he was risking permanent damage to his arm/elbow/shoulder, and may thereby have contributed to his eventual rotator cuff injury.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.23.177.216 (talk) 03:39, 20 November 2006

Pedro does work with "Guile" but actually he really understands how to pitch and not just throw the ball. He changes speeds, levels and locations so the other players have a harder time. The last game he was 88-92 which is respectable but lets see what the future holds. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.197.70.245 (talk) 00:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Needs qualification

"Martinez finished his Red Sox career with a 117-37 record, the highest winning percentage any pitcher has had with any team in baseball history." That is unlikely to be true; there must be guys who finished their career with e.g. a 1-0 record. This needs a qualifier like "with over 10 wins" or whatever the right (relatively low) number is. BCC 20:15, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] March 17 reversions

The "top pitcher" discussion occurred on this page years ago; I've changed "game today" to "his era" to make it clearer. The "wonderful season" remark is a little too gushy for Wikipedia standards. The paragraph about Martinez's 17-K game in Yankee Stadium is entirely redundant, as a fuller version of the game appears elsewhere in the article. The "Gooden's heyday" reference is POV; maybe a cited "--- has said that"-style quote could make it includable. The "prestigious MTM Award" and the "Boston County Spanish Speed Speaking Competition" appears to be imaginary. 208.120.6.206 (talk) 04:52, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Little Pedro

Do you remember little pedro, can we add him to the article?--208.102.189.190 (talk) 17:07, 16 April 2008 (UTC)