New York Mets Need Starling Marte to Heat Up
After signing a four-year, $78 million deal with the Mets prior to the 2022 season, Starling Marte quickly established himself as a strong veteran presence.
In his first year in Queens, the outfielder appeared in 118 games and had a .292/.347/.468 triple slash to go along with a 136 wRC+, .355 wOBA and 3.0 fWAR.
In an early September contest with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Marte was hit by a pitch on his hand which later revealed a finger fracture.
Marte wound up missing the rest of the regular season before returning for the Wild Card series vs. the San Diego Padres, though he clearly wasn't 100 percent.
Marte then underwent core muscle surgery in the offseason, but didn't end up missing any time when 2023 began.
However, the 34-year-old has been slow out of the gates this season. Whether he is still recovering, or if it's just early season woes, New York could desperately use the Marte of last year.
So far on the young campaign, Marte is hitting just .227/.318/.320, has a 87 wRC+ and .292 wOBA and has hit just one home run.
Marte has been strong in certain areas this year, such as strikeout percentage (85th percentile according to Baseball Savant), and walk rate (55th percentile up from the 12th percentile last year), but has seen dips in xBA (59th percentile) and max exit velocity (73rd percentile) from last year.
It's still early, but the Mets really missed Marte when he was hurt at the end of last year, and currently could really benefit from his bat heating up.
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