Pedro Martinez would've loved to use analytics in his playing days

Pedro Martinez is one of the best starting pitchers of all time. The first-ballot Hall of Famer won three Cy Young Awards, a Triple Crown, and the 2004 World Series with the Boston Red Sox.

Martinez joined Rob Bradford on the Audacy original podcast “Baseball Isn’t Boring” to discuss the art of pitching and how things have evolved over the years.

“I don’t think pitching ever changes, people do and players do and mental aspects of the game change a little bit,” Martinez said (5:30 in player above). “This is a game of adjustments. As the league goes, you have to prepare your players and your pitchers to do the things that they need to do to be successful. So pitching will always be pitching but it all depends on how it’s used by the organization and the different teams and the way baseball trends.”

Martinez was absolutely dominant in his prime and still had some good years towards the end of his career. It’s scary to think of how good he could be with all of the extra training, information, and analytics in today’s game.

He spoke about what pitchers today should be doing that wasn’t necessarily happening when he played.

“Pay attention to the little details from the analytics department and all that. Learn what the hitters are doing to improve what they do offensively to then contrast that,” he said. “That’s what the pitchers need to do is to disrupt what the hitters are trying to do, and that’s exactly what they’re working on right here. The analysis that the hitters get, the same thing they’re doing with the pitchers. It’s just a balance.”

While analytics can be a hot-button issue, Martinez wishes he had that type of information back in his day.

“I would’ve loved to use most of the information, and at the same time continue to work on the basic fundamental stuff we need to do to execute pitches. Because that’s the biggest difference,” he said. “If you execute pitches right along with knowing the tendencies that you’re going to get from the hitters, you should be comfortable approaching some of those great hitters that we have in the league.”

Martinez finished his career with a 219-100 record and a 2.93 ERA. And to think he could’ve been even better if he had some of the information that is widely available today.