Royals Signal Starling Marte

Starling Marte and the Royals have agreed to a one-year, Main League contract.  Monetary time period of the settlement aren’t but recognized.  The deal will probably be finalized as soon as Marte passes a bodily, and the Royals should make one other transaction to clear house on their 40-man roster for the Klutch Sports activities consumer.

2025 was the final season of Marte’s four-year, $78MM contract with the Mets, and whereas Marte was hopeful of taking part in for a number of extra years, there hadn’t been any public buzz about his free agent market over the winter.  Now, the 37-year-old has landed with a Kansas Metropolis membership whose curiosity within the former two-time All-Star dates again to final winter, when the Royals had some talks with the Mets a couple of attainable commerce.

Marte’s tenure in New York was outlined by accidents, as he performed in solely 396 video games throughout his four-year stint.  Groin issues have been the supply of most of Marte’s points, as surgical procedure on each his left and proper groin muscle tissue following the 2022 season didn’t solely right the issue, because the harm resurfaced in 2023.  Marte additionally missed time on account of a neck pressure, migraines, and a bone bruise in his proper knee, and the Mets responded to Marte’s lower-body accidents by making him primarily a full-time DH in 2025.

Marte nonetheless made 12 appearances within the outfield final yr, and given the Royals’ want for outfield assist, Kansas Metropolis might contemplate giving him barely extra time on the grass in 2026.  After buying each the switch-hitting Isaac Collins and the right-handed hitting Lane Thomas this winter, the Royals’ major outfield appears like Collins in left subject, defensive specialist Kyle Isbel in middle, and Thomas and lefty-swinging Jac Caglianone maybe in a platoon scenario in proper subject.  Salvador Perez and high prospect Carter Jensen will deal with the catching duties, and whomever isn’t behind the plate will seemingly get loads of DH at-bats.

It will add as much as one other part-time position for Marte, although there’s worth in having a veteran bat on the roster.  Caglianone struggled badly in his first publicity to large league pitching in 2025, and Thomas is coming off primarily a misplaced yr on account of accidents in 2025.  Thomas’ high season was his 28-homer marketing campaign with the Nationals in 2023, however he has posted only a 98 wRC+ over 1900 plate appearances during the last 4 seasons.  Collins can be removed from a positive factor, as his spectacular 2025 rookie season with the Brewers got here regardless of some hard-contact points that have been maybe obscured by a .326 BABIP.

Marte hasn’t seemed like a real top-tier hitter since 2022, however he nonetheless managed a decent .269/.331/.398 slash line and 16 homers over 699 PA throughout the 2024-25 seasons, translating to a 108 wRC+.  Marte remains to be making exhausting contact at an above-average charge, even when his energy (and his Statcast metrics on the entire) have fallen off.

Whether or not or not Marte can preserve even this respectable manufacturing into his fifteenth Main League season stays to be seen, after all.  It may be argued that Collins, Thomas, and Marte couldn’t assist however be upgrades for Okay.C. given how little the Royals have gotten from their outfield combine in the previous couple of years, plus Caglianone remains to be a highly-touted prospect with breakout potential.

Marte’s subsequent contract will certainly be value just a few million {dollars} in assured cash, with most likely some bonus clauses inbuilt based mostly on plate appearances.  The Royals’ payroll at the moment sits at round $149.2MM (as per RosterResource‘s estimates), which represents a modest enhance over their $139.8MM determine from 2025.  This tracks with proprietor John Sherman’s feedback from October concerning the payroll seemingly staying in the identical basic vary, which naturally left the entrance workplace slightly restricted in what they might do in pursuing wanted lineup assist.

Reporter Yancen Pujols first broke the information that Marte and the Royals have been in contract talks.  MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand (a number of hyperlinks) reported that the deal was in place, and that Marte had inked a assured contract.