And as the manager has noted previously, Marte is a victim of not playing regularly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel it\u2019s not an easy role to be in, when you\u2019re used to playing every day and it takes time,\u2019\u2019 Mendoza said. \u201cWe have to understand it\u2019s not an easy role to be in, when you\u2019re not getting at-bats every day and you\u2019re only facing lefties or when you get an opportunity as a pinch hitter and it\u2019s usually in a high-leverage [situation] and you\u2019re facing a pretty good arm.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Starling](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/6-new-york-mets-hits-104852631.jpg\")
Starling Marte #6 of the New York Mets hits a double in the fourth inning at Yankee Stadium, Sunday, May 18, 2025. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n
But Mendoza said some of the underlying numbers are encouraging when it comes to the 36-year-old.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ball continues to jump off the bat, the bat speed, it\u2019s there,\u2019\u2019 Mendoza said. \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure he\u2019ll get it going here pretty soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite Mendoza\u2019s confidence, Marte\u2019s average exit velocity is down, and he\u2019s hit slightly worse versus lefties (.602 OPS heading into Sunday) than righties (.604).<\/p>\n
He\u2019s in the final year of a four-year, $78 million contract, and the Mets shopped him during the offseason.<\/p>\n
Not surprisingly, there hasn\u2019t been much of a market for Marte, a player in decline who has battled injuries throughout his time with the Mets.<\/p>\n
With Jeff McNeil back and showing an ability to play the outfield again, he can take up a spot \u2014 especially against right-handers \u2014 and he was in center on Sunday.<\/p>\n
![\"Starling](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/6-new-york-mets-reacts-104852643.jpg\")
Starling Marte #6 of the New York Mets reacts after he hits a double in the fourth inning at Yankee Stadium, Sunday, May 18, 2025. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n
And Mendoza insisted it wouldn\u2019t be an issue finding a spot in the lineup going forward, even with Baty showing of late that he\u2019s capable of playing every day and the defensively challenged Mark Vientos perhaps better suited to DH than third base.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot at all,\u201d Mendoza said of potentially having a hard time getting Marte in the lineup. \u201cHe\u2019s a good player. For us to get to where we want to get, we\u2019re gonna need him. I\u2019ve got to continue to give him at-bats. He\u2019s a good player.\u201d<\/p>\n
The results haven\u2019t been there.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDelivering insights on all things Amazin\u2019s\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Mets by Mike Puma, exclusively on Sports+\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Marte is putting up worse numbers against virtually all types of pitches than he did at other points of his career.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s played part of just one game in the outfield this season after he missed extensive action last year with a bone bruise in his right knee.<\/p>\n
Without Marte in the outfield mix, Brandon Nimmo has been solid in left and Juan Soto an everyday presence in right and Tyrone Taylor a regular in center, where he\u2019s typically flourished defensively.<\/p>\n
If Marte can\u2019t play defense, it would seem he doesn\u2019t serve much purpose on the team, especially since he\u2019s struggled against both lefties and righties after hitting both of them well in the past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carlos Mendoza said he plans to keep giving Starling Marte playing time despite the lack of production from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37989,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2396],"tags":[5,101,4,1690,61,2548,4203,185,1420,10545],"class_list":{"0":"post-37988","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-mets","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mets","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-mets","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkmets","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-starling-marte","17":"tag-subway-series"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114532763855149295","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}