Starling Marte was a crucial part of the New York Mets team that won 101 games back in 2022, but since then, Marte has struggled mightily at the plate. After putting up an OPS of .815 two seasons ago, Marte scuffled to the tune of a .625 OPS in 2023, and it doesn’t look like the veteran right fielder is on track to breaking out of his rut at the plate anytime soon, which has sapped any and all value of his overall.
In 20 Spring Training at-bats to this point, Marte has tallied a base hit for a grand total of two times while reaching on base via walk once. This all adds up to an .OPS of .243, which, suffice to say, isn’t the level that is required if the Mets were to bounce back from their disappointing 2023 season.
“The results haven’t all been there,” Marte told Andrew Crane of the New York Post following the Mets’ 6-5 win over the Houston Astros on Wednesday night. “But I see how I’m hitting the ball, I see the direction of where I’m hitting the ball and I’m really encouraged by that.”
Starling Marte seems to be getting underneath the ball more often than he would like. During the Mets’ recent Spring Training game against the Astros, Marte flied out and popped out in his two plate appearances, and moving forward Marte would want to flatten his swing to get more line drives so he could at least recoup some of the value he lost at the dish during his injury-riddled 2023 season.
Last season, Marte’s line-drive rate went down by nearly four percentage points, while his groundball and flyball rate went up as well, and that is a troubling trend for the Mets right fielder, especially when taking into consideration his current Spring Training struggles.
Marte is projected to have a bit of a bounce-back season in 2024, but the Mets veteran must do the requisite steps to fix his swing, especially when he’s not getting any younger. The Mets need him to do so, as the team doesn’t exactly have too much depth in the outfield to compensate for another poor campaign from the 35-year old.
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