Instead he calls out in Spanish to the young pitcher who stands there, a player in whom both the Red Sox and Martinez see vast promise. Rubby De La Rosa was, after all, the centerpiece in the deal that divested the Sox of much of their payroll and a few of their problem players last summer.

De La Rosa — whom he calls “a very special talent, oh my God” — is one of Martinez’s wards this spring, as the pitching great comes back to a game he loves with the team that made him iconic.

His role remains undefined. Martinez, who retired after the 2009 season, promised Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington he would do whatever he could to help, though he didn’t want a full-time position that would take him away from his family.

That left him exploring the Sox spring training complex last week, on back fields and at bullpen sessions, the crowds trailing his every move.

On Wednesday morning, he studied De La Rosa’s approach, watching carefully to notice every subtle motion, every twitch and quirk. He stood still, shuffling a ball in his right hand.

“I love watching mechanics,” Martinez said. “I like to look at every single detail. I will concentrate sometimes on legs, other times on movement, on the head, arm angles, hands. I can pick out everything.”

Martinez is from the same school of thought as Red Sox pitching coach Juan Nieves, he says pointedly. He is not trying to be the pitching coach, not wanting the time commitment.

And yet, that is what he sounds like. It is, in many ways, a role for which he prepared much of his major league career — studying, learning, processing. There was massive talent, sure. But he needed more, contrary to the impression left by the brilliance of his Red Sox days. He couldn’t coast, so he worked and watched and analyzed. He needed those tools. He needed, too, the encouragement of those around him.

Martinez recalled a moment from his days in Montreal, a period in which he struggled so much that he urged manager Felipe Alou to send him home. Tommy Harper, a coach, sidled up to him in the dugout after a game. Harper told him just to keep pitching, to keep pitching and not to go home.

As Martinez said, “If I could just relate that to some of the guys sometimes in times of struggle, that would be a plus.”

That’s what he wants to do. That’s what he wants to give.

This is, so far, no mere ceremonial job. Unlike some former Red Sox who come back to Fort Myers, Martinez has not spent his days on golf carts, lounging in the sun. The special assistant to the general manager had already done his time in the video room Tuesday morning, an hour and a half or more of studying the Red Sox arms.

It’s a legacy from his playing days, when he spent hours watching the pitchers of his era — Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, Mike Mussina, Andy Pettitte, Roy Halladay — trying to pick apart what made them great. He learned from the mechanics of Clemens, the head of Maddux, the elbow of Cliff Lee. He didn’t talk about it, didn’t alert the media. He just studied, copied, appropriating what he could.

So, once again, he spends his free moments watching video, computers lined up next to each other to analyze the motions of his new charges.

“I was a student,” Martinez said. “I wasn’t just gifted. I had to study a lot.”

Martinez did that again on a back bullpen that morning, as minor league catcher Matt Spring worked with Triple A pitcher Pedro Beato, Martinez taking time with players even most diehard Red Sox fans couldn’t identify.

“When Pedro Martinez talks, you listen,” Spring said. “He was telling me on different pitches to give him a target that’s going to be more successful for him. [Beato] has more of a straight fastball, so he’s having me slide off the plate, not to allot for much movement, but just to give him a target for where it should be going.”

Beato was backing off his split-fingered fastball in the session, not throwing it the way he could. Martinez yelled at him to really throw it, to put his all in. Between that change and the altered stance by Spring, the catcher said, the side session improved vastly.