Rafael Martinez (minors02)

Rafael Martinez Bernabel

• Bats Left, Throws Left
• Height 6' 3", Weight 185 lb.

• Born August 24, 1975 in Santo Domingo, Distrito Nacional, D.R.

BR Minors page

Biographical Information

First baseman Rafael Martinez played 11 seasons in the minors.

Martinez hit .209 for the 1992 DSL Dodgers, improved to .292 in 1993 and .300/.427/.450 with 61 runs and 59 RBI in 68 games for the 1994 DSL Dodgers 1. That won him a trip stateside with the 1995 Great Falls Dodgers, where he batted .273/.358/.443. In 1996, Rafael hit only .198/.287/.280 for the Vero Beach Dodgers, with 105 strikeouts and five homers in 354 AB.

Martinez moved to the New York Mets system in 1997 and split time between the Capital City Bombers (.268/.347/.443 in 44 G) and St. Lucie Mets (.196/.256/.284 in 66 G). He was in the Boston Red Sox organization for 1998, with the Sarasota Red Sox (.267/.368/.353) and Trenton Thunder (.204/.304/.265 in 15 G).

Rafael next moved to the independent leagues. He hit .313/.400/.458 with the 1999 Allentown Ambassadors. In 2000, he played for the Waterbury Spirit (.230/.325/.324 in 44 G) and Catskill Cougars (.223/.325/.288 in 39 G).

Martinez was one of the top Dominican performers in the 2001 Baseball World Cup, hitting .323/.476/.323 as their starting first baseman. In 2002, he hit .315/.435/.404 in limited action for the Puebla Pericos. Remaining in the Mexican League in 2003, he batted .194/.212/.323 in eight games for the Veracruz Rojos. He was on the Dominican national team that won Silver in the 2006 Central American and Caribbean Games.

After his playing career ended, Martinez joined the Detroit Tigers organization as a coach. He may have coached for them as early as 2006, but the years 2006-2009 could not be confirmed. He served as the hitting coach with the 2010 DSL Tigers, then managed the club in 2011-2015. Martinez led his team to the playoffs in both 2013 and 2014. He left the DSL in 2016 to manage the GCL Tigers West. After several years of managing, Martinez went back to coaching hitters in 2017 with the Connecticut Tigers. He was slated to return to Connecticut in 2018, but Tigers' management replaced the Connecticut coaching staff shortly before the season started. It is not clear what role Martinez played for the remainder of 2018; he may simply have switched roles with Bill Springman who was originally scheduled to coach GCL Tigers West hitters. Martinez spent his final three seasons with the Tigers (2019-2021) as their Director of Latin American Player Development. In 2021, the Tigers decided to revamp their player development system and released a significant number of coaches and other player development staff. Martinez was caught up in this transformation.

The Minnesota Twins hired Martinez to manage the DSL Twins team in 2022-2023.

In the offseason Martinez also did some work in the Dominican Republic. He worked for the Estrellas Orientales in 2016 when the team fired manager Audo Vicente on November 25th and replaced him with bench coach Rodney Linares. This action led to a shuffling of coaches and Martinez was brought aboard to coach first base for the remainder of the 2016/2017 season.