Ketel Marte's bizarre D-backs no-show is a reminder of the bullet SF Giants dodged

If one can remember back to last offseason, a time where SF Giants fans still had some delusional hope that the 2026 team could actually be good, or at the very least not completely terrible, there was a lot of talk about upgrading at second base.

Casey Schmitt was seen as a fine option to have, but the Giants went into 2025 with Tyler Fitzgerald as their second baseman and it did not pan out at all so it made sense to look around and see if there was the potential to improve.

Names like Brendan Donovan and C.J. Abrams were tossed around. Then there was the Ketel Marte rumor followed by the news that the Giants were on Marte’s no-trade list. That probably ended up being the best thing possible because of what just went down in Boston.

The Arizona Diamondbacks were set to play the Red Sox on Monday night and just before first pitch it was announced that Marte was placed on the restricted list and apparently never showed up to Fenway Park. More info slowly came out and manager Torey Lovullo said that it was a personal matter, but this is a pattern of behavior with Marte.

He was put on the restricted list last year after his house was broken into and then he went to the Dominican Republic. There have been rumblings for a while now about how his teammates in Arizona don’t love how he takes games off. 

It’s all just very strange and the fact that this keeps happening with Marte suggests it’s probably a good thing that the Giants did not acquire him especially given his contract and the way he’s performed this season.

After two straight All-Star campaigns in 2024 and 2025, Marte has hit .249/.314/.446 this season with 21 home runs and 67 runs batted in which is down from his last few years. Although, of course he's torched the Giants and hit a walk-off home run against them.

It’s not a horrific decline by any stretch, but he is 32 years old and is owed a lot of money until he is set to become a free agent after the 2031 season if he opts into the final year of his deal.

The Giants know all about overpaid, declining veterans so adding another contract like that to the books would have been absolutely disastrous.

At least Willy Adames wants to play every day for the Giants

As I wrote last week about Willy Adames who has been dealing with a back injury for a while and has tried to play through it, you’d rather have a guy who you have to drag off the field over someone like Marte whose commitment to playing everyday has come into question. Marte is a good player, but it’s not clear he is worth the repeated headaches.

The Giants made the right call by keeping Schmitt and signing Luis Arraez in the offseason. They were able to flip Arraez for a good prospect and now they have Schmitt going forward whose production before he got hurt was arguably better than Marte’s this year at a fraction of the cost.

One hopes Marte is okay and that they are able to get things sorted out, but the Giants have to be glad they avoided this drama and were not able to trade for him. 

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow