WASHINGTON — The numbers, both traditional and advanced, have painted a troubling picture of the Mets’ Starling Marte through the first six weeks of the season.
Virtually everything is down, from his average to his power to his pitch selectivity to his running speed. There are concerns about a 34-year-old aging quickly a season after he was an All-Star and a critical component of the Mets’ attack.
An encouraging set of numbers for Marte, though, are found in his history at the onset of seasons.
April, including late March, represent his worst month statistically, with a career .747 OPS.
He started slowly last year, too, with a .608 OPS in April before he broke out with an .929 OPS in May.
Both the Mets and their struggling outfielder hope he gets hotter with the weather.
“I think that’s a good assessment, that I get better in the coming months,” Marte said through interpreter Alan Suriel before the Mets opened a series at Nationals Park on Friday. “Especially [because] you come into a place where it’s usually cold during the beginning of the season after just being down in spring training, where it’s hot. … Sometimes you kind of lose your timing a little bit early in those months.
“It doesn’t matter how you start, it’s how you finish.”
His slow start has mattered, though, for a Mets club that is far closer to the last-place Nationals than the first-place Braves.
The Mets have missed the production they received most of last season from Marte, who was hitting just .217 with just one home run entering play.
After spending his consistent 2022 season primarily as the No. 2 hitter, Marte has been dropped to No. 6 and his OPS of .563 was the sixth-worst among qualified batters in all of baseball entering Friday.
Perhaps Marte simply needs more time to get going. His health, he said, is not a factor in his poor play. After offseason groin surgeries and an April neck strain, he said he feels good and has no injury alibi.
Manager Buck Showalter talked to Marte for “an extended period” Friday, checking up on him, and also heard the outfielder feels perfectly fine.
“Just not getting it done right now,” the manager said of Marte, who is on the second year of a four-year, $78 million deal. “He seems to be rushing for something to happen. His pitch recognition has gotten away from him a little bit, and that’s what’s been frustrating for him.”
In Marte’s first 33 games this season, he chased 35.1 percent of pitches that were out of the strike zone. Last year, his chase-rate was 32.8 percent. Marte acknowledged the issue and said he’s “starting to feel better” with his batting eye.
The more concerning advanced statistic entails Marte’s sprint speed. At his fastest — since the stat has been measured — he could cover 29.6 feet per second in 2015, which was 16th in MLB.
Last year, the number was down to 28.0 feet per second, which was 182nd.
Through the early goings of this season, he sprinted 26.6 feet per second, which tumbled all the way down to 245th in the game.
It is possible he is still building up after the groin surgeries, though he declined to use it as an excuse.
“From my point of view, I feel fine,” said Marte, who still is running and had nine stolen bases entering play. “You [media] have the numbers, and if that’s what you guys see, then you guys might have your own perspective of it. But at the end of the day, I’m going to continue to try to run as hard as I possibly can.”
The Mets have tried giving him a few days off to spark him, but that has not worked yet. Maybe Marte needs a bit more time, as he has in the past.
The club hopes that a mid-30s outfielder, whose game is based largely on athleticism, has not begun a downturn.
“He thinks it’s going to happen,” Showalter said, “and I trust him.”
