{"id":2306194,"date":"2026-03-01T07:47:37","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T07:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2306194"},"modified":"2026-03-01T07:47:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T07:47:37","slug":"royals-agree-to-deal-with-starling-marte-royals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/royals-agree-to-deal-with-starling-marte-royals\/","title":{"rendered":"Royals Agree to Deal With Starling Marte &#8211; Royals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"news-content-main\">\n<p>\n\t\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<span>On Saturday afternoon, MLB.com&#8217;s Mark Feinsand reported that the Kansas City Royals had agreed to a deal with outfielder <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/martest01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=royalskeep.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-02-28_br\" rel=\"external\" target=\"_blank\">Starling Marte<\/a>, pending a physical.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<iframe allowfullscreen=\"\" class=\"ipsEmbed_finishedLoading\" data-controller=\"core.front.core.autosizeiframe\" data-embedid=\"embed9821751292\" src=\"https:\/\/royalskeep.com\/index.php?app=core&amp;module=system&amp;controller=embed&amp;url=https:\/\/x.com\/Feinsand\/status\/2027822807682351170?s=20\" style=\"overflow: hidden; height: 278px;\"><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tYancen Pujols, via El Extra Base&#8217;s Daniel Alvarez-Montes, reported early this morning that Marte and the Royals had progressed in talks and were close to signing a deal to bring him to Kansas City.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<iframe allowfullscreen=\"\" class=\"ipsEmbed_finishedLoading\" data-controller=\"core.front.core.autosizeiframe\" data-embedid=\"embed539955825\" src=\"https:\/\/royalskeep.com\/index.php?app=core&amp;module=system&amp;controller=embed&amp;url=https:\/\/x.com\/DanielAlvarezEE\/status\/2027582263806816268?s=20\" style=\"overflow: hidden; height: 402px;\"><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<span>The Royals have shown interest in Marte before. Last year, a possible deal at the Winter Meetings would&#8217;ve brought Marte to Kansas City in exchange for reliever <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/h\/harvehu01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=royalskeep.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-02-28_br\" rel=\"external\" target=\"_blank\">Hunter Harvey<\/a>. However, the deal couldn&#8217;t be finalized. Marte was also a free agent this winter, and <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/royalskeep.com\/news-rumors\/kansas-city-royals\/should-the-royals-pursue-outfielder-starling-marte-r4036\/\" rel=\"\">there were rumblings that he fit what the Royals were looking for in the outfield for 2026<\/a>. <\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tMarte has a career 35.9 fWAR and is a two-time All-Star and Gold Glove award winner. He&#8217;s been beset by injuries over the past few years, as he hasn&#8217;t had more than 370 plate appearances in a season since 2022, his first season with the Mets. Last season, in 329 plate appearances, he slashed .270\/.335\/.410 with a .326 wOBA, 112 wRC+, and 0.7 fWAR. He also had nine home runs, 37 runs scored, 34 RBI, and seven stolen bases.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tIn terms of his Statcast percentiles, he showed a decent 90th percentile exit velocity and ranked in the 52nd percentile in strikeout rate. However, he is definitely a player in the later stages of his career, as illustrated in his TJ Stats summary from 2025 below.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<span>Despite this declining skill set, it&#8217;s likely that Marte will be a platoon bat who will rotate among all three outfield positions with <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/colliis01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=royalskeep.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-02-28_br\" rel=\"external\" target=\"_blank\">Isaac Collins<\/a>, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/i\/isbelky01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=royalskeep.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-02-28_br\" rel=\"external\" target=\"_blank\">Kyle Isbel<\/a>, and <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/caglija01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=royalskeep.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-02-28_br\" rel=\"external\" target=\"_blank\">Jac Caglianone<\/a>. MLB.com Royals beat writer Anne Rogers reported that Marte, who is coming to Kansas City on a one-year deal, will be utilized mostly as a depth piece off the bench, but he could earn more playing time if he produces like he did last year or in 2024 (103 wRC+).\u00a0<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<iframe allowfullscreen=\"\" class=\"ipsEmbed_finishedLoading\" data-controller=\"core.front.core.autosizeiframe\" data-embedid=\"embed8702000800\" src=\"https:\/\/royalskeep.com\/index.php?app=core&amp;module=system&amp;controller=embed&amp;url=https:\/\/x.com\/anne__rogers\/status\/2027830386437349795?s=20\" style=\"overflow: hidden; height: 454px;\"><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<span>It sounds like Marte will be receiving a Major League deal, which means that the Royals will likely DFA someone on the 40-man roster to make room. Outfielders <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/blancda02.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=royalskeep.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-02-28_br\" rel=\"external\" target=\"_blank\">Dairon Blanco<\/a> and <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/w\/waterdr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=royalskeep.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-02-28_br\" rel=\"external\" target=\"_blank\">Drew Waters<\/a> seem like prime candidates, especially Waters, who is out of Minor League options and posted a 66 wRC+ in 219 plate appearances last season.\u00a0 <\/span>\n<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source royalskeep.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 On Saturday afternoon, MLB.com&#8217;s Mark Feinsand reported that the Kansas City Royals had agreed to a deal with outfielder Starling Marte, pending a physical. \u00a0 Yancen Pujols, via El Extra Base&#8217;s Daniel Alvarez-Montes, reported early this morning that Marte and the Royals had progressed in talks and were close to signing a deal to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2306195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[428844],"class_list":["post-2306194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-starling-marte"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Royals-Agree-to-Deal-With-Starling-Marte-Royals.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2306194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2306194"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2306194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2306196,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2306194\/revisions\/2306196"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2306195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2306194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2306194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2306194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}