Love for Starling Marte

[Illinest]

Slugging .448 with one game left. BA decent at .264.

Great arm, covers lots of ground. I like him a lot. I'm excited to see what might come in 2013.

 

[element1286]

Yea, he had a decent year. But still too many k's and doesn't get on base enough.

 

[magnumo]

Marte definitely showed some flashes of excellence. Hopefully, he'll continue to develop..... and improve upon his flaws.

Hurdle has made some very strange decisions this year, and his negatives were magnified during the Pirates' epic collapse. However, I believe he deserves credit for his handling of Marte. According to several reports, Hurdle took Marte out of the lineup more than once when he got "out of control"..... and that seems to have helped Marte regain focus upon returning.

At any rate, I'm also excited about Marte's potential, and hope that his development continues to be well-managed, whether by Hurdle or his replacement.

 

[evolver115]

Marte is red hot so far in 2013. He looks more and more like a guy who is going to be a lineup fixture for many years to come.

Starling is currently tied for second in the NL for hits (Gonzalez, Crawford). Not bad company

 

[Chef99]

I love Starling. He could still turn out to be a lead off guy who strikes out too much, but it ain't lookin' that way right now. Dude's got a ton of potential.

 

[powerchord86]

Grabbed him for my FBB team and lovin' it.

 

[sychmd]

he will be a stat stuffer like reyes and grant hill.
hits, runs, doubles, triples, HR (last nites triple would have been out at a bunch of parks) RBI, SB, Assists and with that OPS.
he seems to have an edge and fiestiness that will battle through adversity, but also emotions that he needs to control.
excited he is a buc and will push cutch to improve. they wil have a healthy competition that will push the best out of each the next decade in pitts hopefully!

 

[Etrius24]

Love the great start... Every week he continues to play well is that much more convinced I will be that he can be a big step up from what we have in Tabata or any other outfielder not named Cutch.

I am not expecting a ton of power...I would like to see the average stay close to .300 for the season... and I do not care if he strikes out 200 times this year!!! If his OPS is .800 and he is getting on base more than 35% of the time then he is an effective bat at the top of the lineup.

Strikeouts are nowhere near as bad as hitting into a double play.

Long term I would like to see a few more walks out of the guy..His walk rate right now is terrible!... But when you are hitting .320 everything looks all roses... If he was hitting .280 ish the shine starts coming off the wheels with that walk rate.

He is still just 24... and a rookie... So there is still time for the kid.. I am optimistic that we will see 20+ homeruns from this kid maybe next year.. He is a kid that hit 13 triples in 100 games at AAA last year.. He has more power coming.

I feel like if this kid could walk 50 times a year he would be an annual all star with Cutch! 60 extra base hits a year from him...300 average solid defense... Some ability to steal bases maybe he hits 20 jacks and steals 20 bases a couple of times in his career.

This team still needs another plus young bat though... Pedro has improved Cutch and Marte form a nice trio.. but Jones is on the wrong side of 30...So in 2015 when these guys are all hitting on all cylinders Jones will be out of the picture. I like Dickerson okay but he is at best going to come up june of 2015 imho...So there is not a lot of help offensively down on the farm for this or next years team.

Maybe it is time that the bucs packaged a couple of really decent arms low in the system for an elite bat in double or triple A ?... When I look at the farm system we seem to have 4 or 5 legit pitching prospects for every bat.

Maybe this needs to be another thread which we can discuss?

 

[magnumo]

He [Marte] is still just 24... and a rookie... So there is still time for the kid.. I am optimistic that we will see 20+ homeruns from this kid maybe next year.. He is a kid that hit 13 triples in 100 games at AAA last year.. He has more power coming.

Starling Marte is NOT a rookie.

The limits for a position player to maintain rookie status are not more than 130 at bats and not more than 45 days on the 25-man roster. In 2012, Marte exceeded both of those limits, with 167 at bats and 70 days on the 25-man roster.

 

[Etrius24]

Okay then

This will be his first full season with the big league club ( assuming he stays healthy and productive )

Mags is right he had 167 at bats last year...

 

[Etrius24]

another good night for Marte by the way!

Marte had a couple of hits and a couple of stolen bases... The kid now has 5 on the season!

 

[steelparrot]

Pirates' Marte is a Star(ling), but is he as good as McCutchen? - CBSSports.com

Love quotes from scouts and execs.

 

[Etrius24]

The guy just keeps on plugging.. Hitting .336 with a OPS of 916! Plus the fact that he already has 10 stolen bases. I think he has an excellent chance of scoring 100 runs this year. My only complaint with Marte is that he does not walk very much... It is a minor point that becomes somewhat moot when you have a guy hitting near .340! But I am not expecting Marte to maintain this batting average for his career..So I would like to see the on base percentage come up via the walk. Right now he strikes out 5 times for every walk... Just a modest improvement in this area would make a big difference going forward for this kid....He is showing decent pop in his bat, he runs well.. Plays good defense, and is hitting for a great average.. He has been in my mind the most pleasant surprise so far this season for the Pirates.. I never expected Grilli to be that efficient...14 of the Bucs 20 wins he has saved! 23 strikeouts in 14 innings pitched.. WOW... But I still have to say that Marte has been the best story of the Bucs 2013 season thus far.

 

[Etrius24]

I keep waiting for one of these writers on a lesser site like Yahoo or CBS to write an article on Grilli... 36 year old journeyman pitcher who all of a sudden is one of the best closers ( this year ) in baseball.

Maybe, just maybe something special is meant to happen in Pittsburgh this year.

 

[steelparrot]

He has time to up his walks.

As for Grilli:

Never a closer before, 36-year-old Grilli gets a chance -- and succeeds - CBSSports.com

 

[Etrius24]

Thanks for the link Parrot..I knew It would be CBS or Yahoo...LOL

The only thing about Marte and the walks is that he has been very consistent coming up through the minors, not drawing many walks... So this is not something we can look at and say that he has been progressing nicely in this area. Some players just do not get on base via the walk and he may be one such player. I HOPE he gets better in this area.. but as long as he does everything else well he will still be a pretty good baseball player.

 

[thedddd]

It is great to see and like others I took him in a few of my FB teams before he caught on with everyone. Glad I got him. I hope he keeps it up.

This article Steve Melewski: A stat comparison that shows Manny Machado ahead of Harper and Trout
If you look at the numbers he is about the same with Machado's but I get why he isn't in the same sentence due to age.

Anyway that article got me thinking of a few drafts:
2007....ehh nevermind not worth it.
2008 - Drafted Posey instead of Alvarez
2009 - Taken Minor, Leake or Wheeler over Sanchez (no need for sanchez with Posey)
2010 - Taken Machado instead of Tailon (the only thought is due to the pitcher the year before)

Just think of the offense this team would have right now(with the hole at SS still).

C- Posey WAR 13.8
1B - Jones
2B- Walker
SS - Barmes
3B - Machado - Career WAR 3.8 vs Alvarez 1.0
LF - Marte
CF - McCutchen
RF- Snider

If you take into 2007 with Wieters, move Posey to 1B, draft Alvarez, Machado stays at SS (if he could play D) and Jones in RF. Even scarier, don't you love hindsight...

 

[Illinest]

Should've been Wieters at C.
Then it's hard to say Posey over Alvarez because Alvarez was THE GUY. We would've burned PNC to the ground if they'd passed on Pedro that year.
With Wieters in the fold we certainly would've taken a pitcher instead of Sanchez.
Then Machado - he could be playing SS. There are those who suggest that he would eventually have had to move to 3B anyways but not yet and maybe not ever if he hadn't been on the same field as JJ Hardy.

But if you're playing the hindsight game - Miguel Sano. He is DESTROYING A+ as a 20 year old. He should've been a Pirate and he should've been our 3B of the future. Look out two years further and you could have this:

C - Weiters
1B - Alvarez/Jones
2B - Walker (with Alen Hansen and Dilson Herrera as possible heirs)
SS - Machado
3B - Sano
LF - Marte
CF - McCutchen
RF - Polanco

 

[Etrius24]

Yeah losing out on Sano hurts