{"id":598364,"date":"2026-02-28T16:44:27","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T16:44:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/598364\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T16:44:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T16:44:27","slug":"royals-in-talks-with-starling-marte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/598364\/","title":{"rendered":"Royals In Talks With Starling Marte"},"content":{"rendered":"

2025 was the last season of Starling Marte<\/a>\u2018s four-year, $78MM contract with the Mets, and while Marte was hopeful<\/a> of playing for multiple more years, there hadn\u2019t been any public buzz about his free agent market over the winter.\u00a0 Things could be changing now, however, as reporter Yancen Pujols<\/a> writes that Marte and the Royals are discussing a contract.<\/p>\n

Now entering his age-37 season, Marte\u2019s tenure in New York was defined by injuries, as he played in only 396 games during his four-year stint.\u00a0 Groin problems were the source of most of Marte\u2019s issues, as surgery on both his left and right groin muscles following the 2022 season didn\u2019t entirely correct the problem, as the injury resurfaced in 2023.\u00a0 Marte also missed time due to a neck strain, migraines, and a bone bruise in his right knee, and the Mets responded to Marte\u2019s lower-body injuries by making him essentially a full-time DH in 2025.<\/p>\n

Marte still made 12 appearances in the outfield last year, and given the Royals\u2019 need for outfield help, Kansas City could consider giving him slightly more time on the grass in 2026 if the two sides reached an agreement.\u00a0 After acquiring both the switch-hitting Isaac Collins<\/a> and the right-handed hitting Lane Thomas<\/a> this winter, the Royals\u2019 primary outfield looks like Collins in left field, defensive specialist Kyle Isbel<\/a> in center, and Thomas and lefty-swinging Jac Caglianone<\/a> perhaps in a platoon situation in right field.\u00a0 Salvador Perez<\/a> and top prospect Carter Jensen<\/a> will handle the catching duties, and whomever isn\u2019t behind the plate will likely get plenty of DH at-bats.<\/p>\n

It would add up to another part-time role for Marte, though there\u2019s value in having a veteran bat on the roster.\u00a0 Caglianone struggled badly in his first exposure to big league pitching in 2025, and Thomas is coming off essentially a lost year due to injuries in 2025.\u00a0 Thomas\u2019 top season was his 28-homer campaign with the Nationals in 2023, but he has posted just a 98 wRC+ over 1900 plate appearances over the last four seasons.\u00a0 Collins is also far from a sure thing, as his impressive 2025 rookie season with the Brewers came despite some hard-contact issues that were perhaps obscured by a .326 BABIP.<\/p>\n

Marte hasn\u2019t looked like a true top-tier hitter since 2022, but he still managed a respectable .269\/.331\/.398 slash line and 16 homers over 699 PA during the 2024-25 seasons, translating to a 108 wRC+.\u00a0 Marte is still making hard contact at an above-average rate, even if his power (and his Statcast<\/a> metrics on the whole) have fallen off.<\/p>\n

Whether or not Marte can maintain even this decent production into his 15th Major League season remains to be seen, of course.\u00a0 It can be argued that Collins, Thomas, and potentially Marte couldn\u2019t help but be upgrades for K.C. given how little the Royals have gotten from their outfield mix in the last few years, plus Caglianone is still a highly-touted prospect with breakout potential.<\/p>\n

Marte\u2019s next contract will surely be a one-year deal worth perhaps a few million dollars in guaranteed money, with probably some bonus clauses built in based on plate appearances.\u00a0 The Royals\u2019 payroll currently sits at around $149.2MM (as per RosterResource<\/a>\u2018s estimates), which represents a modest increase over their $139.8MM figure from 2025.\u00a0 This tracks with owner John Sherman\u2019s comments from October<\/a> about the payroll likely staying in the same general range, which naturally left the front office a little limited in what they could do in pursuing needed lineup help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2025 was the last season of Starling Marte\u2018s four-year, $78MM contract with the Mets, and while Marte was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,4,1420],"class_list":{"0":"post-598364","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-starling-marte"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116149267086519367","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598364","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=598364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}