Starling Marte is a really good baseball player.
Just wanted to get that out of the way.
With that said, he certainly has some flaws, the biggest of which is his hatred for walks. Marte is sporting a crazy-low 3.6% walk rate to go with his 20.5% strikeout rate, which makes him extremely reliant on batted-ball luck. Fortunately, Marte has top-end speed that helps him maintain a high BABIP (and swipe 30 bases this year), but his BABIP is a career-high .391 this season.
| Year | Walk Rate | BABIP | Batting Average |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 4.4% | .333 | .257 |
| 2013 | 4.4% | .363 | .280 |
| 2014 | 6.10% | .373 | .291 |
| 2015 | 4.30% | .333 | .287 |
| 2016 | 3.60% | .391 | .316 |
Marte's .316 batting average looks delicious, but as his BABIP likely normalizes, that average is going to drop. Marte hits for very little power (.140 ISO), so all he's giving fantasy owners right now is that average, runs and steals.
As an in-his-prime former top prospect, Marte is having a big breakout season, seeing as he's never hit over .291, but his 21.7% soft-hit rate is actually worse than his 21.2% mark from a year ago.
Other owners, especially those in need of steals, may be willing to pay up for the 36th-ranked player in Yahoo standard leagues.