The Miami Marlins may have really fumbled the bag with Starling Marte.
Marlins writer Craig Mish of MLB Network reported on Saturday that Marte gave the Marlins multiple chances to sign him. Mish notes that Marte did so during the season, after the season, and even as recently as Friday. Mish also adds that Miami’s most recent offer to Marte would have been enough to get a deal done had they offered it to him before they traded him.
For clarification, the former All-Star Marte was with the Marlins during the 2020 and 2021 seasons. But they traded him to the Oakland Athletics in the middle of 2021. Marte became a free agent after the season, and the Marlins were in the hunt to bring him back, but it never materialized. Marte signed a four-year, $78 million contract with the New York Mets this week instead.
Marte hits for power, hits for average, steals bases (swiping a league-leading 47 of them last season), and can play solid defense as a two-time Gold Glove winner. That is the type of player that the Marlins, who went 67-95 in 2021, really would have benefited from bringing back. But (other than an outlier playoff run during the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign), this is exactly the kind of ineptiude we have come to expect from the Marlins.
