Ketel Marte is the NL’s least valuable player, The Athletic’s Stark says

Ketel Marte is at the very least in the conversation of who the most important Arizona Diamondbacks player is, but he hasn’t acted like someone in that position should, at least not consistently enough.

The Athletic’s Jayson Stark argued that Marte’s poor choices as a supposed team leader made him the least valuable player in the National League this season. He provided a helpful to-do list for what not to do when you’re in the second baseman’s standing as a league-wide star.

The four-step plan is as follows:

1. Don’t forget to show up at the ballpark, especially when your team’s game is somewhere with as much notoriety as Boston and while your team is only a game out of a playoff spot.
2. If you’re deciding to not show up, make sure someone knows. Informing the manager would be a great choice, Stark said.
3. When your team announces an injury to help “throw you cover,” don’t then go to the casino where you’ll likely be identified.
4. When you finally face the media to explain the above, don’t wear a hat that literally says: “May the bridges I burn light the way.”

“Besides the underachievement on the field, that is just epic LVP behavior off the field,” Stark told Arizona Sports’ Bickley & Marotta. “The shockwaves that sent through that group, it was undeniable. It was obvious to everyone who got to see it firsthand and even people like me who weren’t watching firsthand.

“They’ll be living in that ‘What if he just showed up?’ universe for a long time.”

The Diamondbacks are two games back of the final National League Wild Card spot with three games to go. It’s hard to forget that the team went 8-9 in the 17 games that followed Marte’s Aug. 17 no-show, went 6-6 over the next 12 games and have now won five straight going into the final series of the season.

Marte is carrying a batting average that’s the second lowest mark of his career (.250) and he’s hit his fewest home runs in a season (22) since 2022. Since returning to the lineup on Aug. 31, it’s been a .250 average with just one home run in 20 games.

Stark’s column read:

(Marte) couldn’t fit an Aug. 17 game in Boston into his hectic schedule, allegedly because of a sore knee, and his team has been reeling ever since.

That’s an excellent way for any star player to throw his name into the Least Valuable Player conversation. But then heap that model behavior on top of a season in which Marte’s on-base percentage is down more than 60 points from last year … and his slugging percentage has dropped by over 80 points … and his wRC+ (102) tells us he is basically just a league-average player, after two straight years in which he was about 50 percent better than league average. Not good.

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