Going into the 2016 season, everyone considered the Pittsburgh Pirates to have one of the best group of outfielders in baseball. Andrew McCutchen, Starling Marte, and Gregory Polanco were poised to become a true three-headed monster, leading the Pirates to another postseason appearance.
In their ranks they had a bona-fide former-MVP superstar, an established regular with all the talent for further improvement, and a youngster still finding his way, with possibly even greater talent that hadn’t quite shown itself yet.
So the question becomes: how did they do? Did they meet expectations this year, exceed the best case scenarios, or fall flat? Well, it turns out, they pretty much did all three. Here is the second part in our three-part series, on Starling Marte.
Starling Marte: What you see is what you get
After McCutchen’s semi-down year last year, Marte came into this year as a dark-horse for “best” Pirate outfielder. His numbers had shown some improvement from year-to-year, and this was his ZiPS projection, going into the 2016 season:
150 games, 620 PA’s, 17 HR, 69 RBI, 33 SB, .278/.334/.444, 3.8 WAR
And 2016-to-date:
126 games, 526 PA’s, 9 HR, 71 RBI, 47 SB, .311/.362/.457, 4.0 WAR
Looks pretty good, right? When you start talking about Marte, it all comes down to one thing: consistency. Here are Marte’s triple slash stats (batting average/on-base percentage/slugging percentage) from 2014 to 2016:
2014: .291/.356/.453
2015: .287/.337/.444
2016:* .311/.362/.457
*to date
If you squint, you do see some minor improvement there, but it is slight (we’ll get to the raised batting average). Overall, his numbers pretty much look like last year and the year before that. His consistency doesn’t stop with the triple slash stats, though. Here are just a few more:
Contact percentage/Contact rate in the strike zone (Z-Contact%):
2014: 75.8/85.8
2015: 76.2/86.7
2016:* 75.3/85.7
*to date
And since last year, his strikeout and walk rates have stabilized as well:
Strikeout rate/Walk rate:
2014: 24.0/6.1
2015: 19.4/4.3
2016:* 19.6/4.4
*to date
Okay, have we established that Marte is pretty consistent? But what is going on with his home runs this year? After hitting 13 and then 19 home runs the last two years, Marte’s home runs have slipped to only 9 so far. This is quite perplexing, because Marte’s hard hit percentage has actually risen from 29.1 percent last year to a robust 34.9 percent this year. So why aren’t the hard hits going out?
One possible explanation is to look at his launch angle, courtesy of MLB Statcast. The average MLB player has a hitting launch angle of 9.97º, while Marte’s average launch angle this year is only 8.94º. So he is hitting the ball harder than ever, but it’s just not going higher, or over the fence.
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To go along with that, Marte has started spraying the ball all over the field. Last year, he pulled the ball 44 percent of the time. This year that number has dropped to 37.8 percent, with a related increase to both the middle and opposite field. And with that shift-proof batting style, his BABIP has risen from an already-high .333 to an almost-absurd .380 this year. So while he might have a BABIP-inflated batting average and less home runs, his approach at the plate and results have seemed to improve slightly overall, justifying the high BABIP.
But we aren’t getting out of this analysis without talking about the stolen bases. After stealing 30 bases each of the last two years, Marte has exploded to swipe 47 so far this year. And while there is risk/reward with stolen base attempts, his caught stealing rate has gone way down this year, from getting caught 26.8 percent last year to a 20.3 caught stealing rate this year.
There is an advanced stat called wSB, which is the number of runs added above or below average by a player’s stolen base attempts. Marte has always been above average, with a 1.0 wSB in 2014 and 1.8 wSB in 2015. But this, year, by virtue of both an increased number of steals and a drop in caught stealing percentage, his wSB has risen all the way to 4.2 runs above average, and is still rising.
So, you can see a player who is improving in all kinds of little ways, but with an overall consistency to his hitting that few can match. And while he may never be a mega, super-duper-star, Starling Marte is a very, very productive and valuable player, and the Pirates should be very happy with his career and progression so far.
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