Nick Piecoro writes that outside of a handful of scattered performances, Marte rarely looked like an offensive catalyst this past season. He offered sometimes conflicting explanations as to what was happening, sometimes saying it was related to his approach and thus intentional, other times admitting he wasn’t hitting how he wanted.
“He needs to be able to create backspin and direction more toward the middle of the field,” Darnell Coles, the hitting coach, said. “I think this year we got a little bit more rotational, worked around the ball a little bit and swung at a few more pitches in off the plate, which didn’t allow him to stay on or be able to attack pitches on the outer half.