MLB: From another planet; Mets deals with outfielder Starling Marte for four years

The New York Mets agree with the free agent center fielder, Starling mars, pending a physical exam. It’s the culmination of a shocking night for the Mets, who have also come to terms with the infielder Eduardo Escobar and outfielder Mark Canha in the last hours. It’s a $ 78MM four-year warranty for Mars.

Marte was this offseason’s free agent center-field class award, easily the top pick in an otherwise thin market. A 2016 All-Star and two-time Gold Glove winner, he’s coming off perhaps the best season of his ten-year Major League career:

Marte split the 2021 campaign between the Miami Marlins and the Oakland Athletics, posting a line of .310 / .383 / .458 with 12 homers and 47 stolen bases, the best MLB mark, in just 120 games.

A rib fracture cost Mars more than a month of action between April and May, but it was as productive as ever when it returned. After adjusting for pitcher-friendly home parks he played in, Mars’ hitting was only 34 percentage points better than the league average, as measured by wRC +. That’s the best of his career, and the speedy outfielder added a lot more offensive value on top of that with an incredible base run.

Not only was he the most prolific base robber in the game, but he was successful in 90.4% of his attempts, an incredible success rate considering opposing pitchers were well aware of the threat he posed every time he reached base.

While Marte might be coming off his best season, he has been a consistently above-average player for most of his career. His 2021 campaign was the most extreme version of a generally stable skill set: lots of balls in play, high-level grassroots races, and an all-field approach that makes him difficult to defend:

Mars’ .372 batting average on balls in play last season was one of the highest in the league, but he has always had a knack for turning batted balls into hits. So while that BABIP may go back a bit in 2022, it is more likely to fall back closer to the .344 mark of its career compared to the league average of .292.

Marte is an aggressive hitter and has never had a season with an above-average walk rate. His 8.2% walking percentage in 2021 was his personal best, and his patience dropped significantly after he was traded from Miami to Oakland mid-season.

However, his free-swinging ways also keep his strikeouts low, as the Dominican Republic native hasn’t been struck out in more than 20% of his plate appearances in a season since 2014.

It may interest you: MLB Another club from the East of the National League enters the bid for OF Starling Marte

So while Mars doesn’t get a lot of passports, he nonetheless generally handles solid numbers on base based on batting averages that regularly push (or, in the case of 2021, exceed) .300.

Rafael Martinez

I am fond of the King of Sports, especially the Boston Red Sox in MLB and in general all of Mexican baseball. This profession has given me the opportunity to cover major events such as the Caribbean Series, LMB All Star, LMP (uninterrupted since 2009), signings of important players. I had the chance to attend the 2013 World Classic in Arizona, USA, albeit as a fan. Apart from this beautiful sport, I love basketball, where I have also narrated games and even an NBA friendly 10 years ago, but I carry baseball in my veins. Bachelor of Communication Sciences from the Autonomous University of Sinaloa (UAS) , from which I graduated in 2011. I was born in Mazatlán, Sinaloa and started in the world of sports journalism in 2004 in the newspaper El Sol de Mazatlán, where I was a baseball columnist and reporter at the same time. In January 2009 I came to El Debate as a journalist reporter and it was almost six years (in the first stage), until in November 2014 I emigrated to the radio providing my services in Línea Directa-Grupo RSN. My cycle there ended in July 2019 and within days, El Debate gave me another opportunity to work and opened the doors for me again. That is how I came to Al Bat, where I have been since 2019 as a web journalist.

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