The Path Forward for Ketel Marte and the Diamondbacks is Clear

Storytellers in baseball, and sports in general, love big moments. The narratives that come out of spectacular, game-winning plays are part of the lore of the game of baseball. One such moment occurred on Tuesday night at Chase Field in Phoenix.

With the Diamondbacks down 3-2 with two men on in the bottom of the ninth inning, Ketel Marte reached down and golfed a pitch well below the strike zone out to left field for a game-winning three-run homer.

Marte Madness 🤯 pic.twitter.com/wMvhoy7BMC
— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) May 20, 2026

Marte, mired in a season-long slump marked by a tremendous amount of bad luck on balls in play, had an intense reaction, with all of the pent-up frustration coming out at once in a rush of adrenaline.

Once the initial rush subsided a bit, Todd Walsh of D-backs.TV exhorted fans to remember this moment as a potential turning point not only for Marte, but the D-backs' season in general. It's natural to search for these fulcrum points in a season, and often times easy to identify them in retrospect.

Torey Lovullo addressed the momentum question and big moments in his pre-game press conference on Wednesday:

"The best players have the best moments, and they're kind of expected. With the grind that he's been having and the tough luck that he's been having, he finally clipped it, and he got the job done. I think everything falls into place behind your leaders. We all know that he's one of the best players in the National League, and when he has a good moment like that, we all celebrate him," Lovullo said.

Marte followed up with another excellent game in the series finale against the Giants. He doubled and scored in the first inning and hit a go-ahead homer in the third.

He later bunted for a base hit to load the bases and set the table for a Geraldo Perdomo double that gave the D-backs a 6-3 lead they'd never relinquish.

Ketel Marte's Expected Statistics and Loud Contact

Arizona Diamondbacks Ketel Marte swings hard at a pitch August 25, 2025 vs Milwaukee Brewers — Aug 25, 2025; Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA; Arizona Diamondbacks second base Ketel Marte (4) goes down swinging in the seventh inning against the Milwaukee Brewers at American Family Field. Mandatory Credit: Michael McLoone-Imagn Images | Michael McLoone-Imagn Images

So Is this truly a turning point, or just two good games. As any follower of the Diamondbacks has seen, heard and read over and over again, Marte has undeniably hit into bad luck in 2026.

Specifically, Marte's "expected stats" have been mentioned ad-nauseam, not only by this writer, but by the manager, by the D-backs.TV broadcast, and just about every other writer and analyst who covers the team. So here they are:

Ketel Marte Actual vs Expected Stats Thru May 19, 2026 | Jack Sommers

Note the above statistics do not yet include Wednesday's game. According to Statcast, the gap between Marte's wOBA and expected wOBA is the fifth-largest negative gap among 226 qualified MLB hitters. The expected stats are derived from quality of contact, as measured by exit velocity and launch angle, along with actual walks and strikeouts.

Hitting the ball hard is a key component to getting base hits. Not always of course. Plenty of soft line drives, bloops, and flares fall in between infielders and outfielders, and seeing-eye ground balls sneak through. In fact, the batting average on balls hit less than 75 MPH is slightly higher than balls hit between 76-94.

But by and large, the data is clear. Hard contact equals hits. Hard contact is defined by Statcast as anything hit over 95 MPH. And it's at that threshold and higher that we see MLB batting average more than double. Once exit velocity climbs over 105 batting average triples from the the sub-95 MPH buckets. The table below covers 2024-2026:

MLB 2024-2026 Batting Average by Exit Velocity Buckets | Jack Sommers

Which makes the following information all the more stunning. Heading into Wednesday Marte was batting just .270 on balls hit between 95-104 MPH, and .483 on balls hit 105 MPH or greater. That's .130 points and .195 points below league average respectively. For all balls hit over 95 MPH Marte has the second most outs with 46, behind only Fernando Tatis Jr. who has 51.

All of the above supports the idea that Marte is "due" — to use a traditional term for what is also referred to as regression to the mean. Simply put, if Marte continues to hit the ball this hard on a regular basis, his actual results numbers will almost certainly improve.

May 19th will provide a convenient selective begin point for prognosticators claiming the big home run was the turning point. In reality, it is bound to happen anyway. With one caveat.

Poor Swing Decisions May Limit Marte's Rebound

May 19, 2026; Phoenix, Arizona, USA; Arizona Diamondbacks second baseman Ketel Marte (4) reacts against the San Francisco Giants during the first inning at Chase Field. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images | Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images

There is an elephant in the room amid this analysis and storytelling, however. Marte has been chasing pitches outside the strike zone at an alarming rate. It's somewhat ironic perhaps that the pitch he hit for the home run Tuesday was a slider, several inches below the strike zone.

Statcast provides a more detailed "Attack" zone that is divided up differently than the typical MLB Gameday Zone. It's broken up into four areas: Heart, Shadow, Chase, and Waste. The Heart is smaller than the total strike zone, (green dotted line), The Shadow is half in and half out of the zone, while Chase and Waste are beyond the Shadow zone.

FanGraphs provides a convenient table to view how often a player is swinging at pitches in each of these zones. Summarizing the data there, and comparing Marte's swing at Chase zone pitches compared to the 2023-2025 peak period of his career shows almost double the rate of "Chase" swings.

The swing rates are higher in the shadow and waste zones as well, while slightly lower in the heart of the zone.

Ketel Marte Attack Zone Swing Rates | Jack Sommers

The result of all those extra swings at balls out of the zone has been very indentifiable. From 2023-2025, Marte walked in 11.2% of his plate appearances. In 2026 that rate has been almost cut in half to just 6.8%.

Remember the expected stats table above? Even the .353 xwOBA is lower than his .374 xwOBA he posted from 2023-2025. That is directly attributable to taking fewer walks, as actual walks taken are part of the expected stats calculation.

It may be tempting to state that the slump Marte is in caused him to press and swing more. But in truth, this tendency has been evident from the very start of the season. In fact, through his first 66 PA, Marte's chase swing rate was actually at it's highest, nearly 40%. He's improved somewhat to get that number down to 34%.

If Marte is to reach or exceed his expected stats the rest of the way, he's going to need to dial back some of his wilder swings. He's still hitting the ball extremely hard. He's flying around the field making great defensive plays. He is not near decline. He just needs to make better swing decisions.

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