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They have a ritual out in Arizona. Every three or four years, they repeat it. The team is clicking. The squad is on the rise; the vibes in the desert are good. It’s time to sign their exciting, switch-hitting second baseman to a contract extension. And so, in keeping with tradition, Ketel Marte and the Diamondbacks have agreed to a new extension. The deal is for seven years and $116.5 million, including his $11.5 million player option for the seventh year, but it’s a little more complicated than that, because it replaces four years of an existing deal. Let’s get into the backstory, because as I’ve noted, this isn’t an isolated occurrence for Marte and the Diamondbacks.
In 2018, Marte signed a five-year, $24 million deal. He was a young, talented player still finding his footing in the majors; over the previous three years, split between Seattle and Arizona, he’d hit just .264/.319/.361, good for an 84 wRC+. But he was toolsy and exciting, and a buzzy breakout pick coming into the season. The pact felt like a good one for everyone involved. Marte went from having career earnings of $1.3 million to being rich for life overnight, while the Diamondbacks signed a nice player to a good contract.
Then Marte took off. In 2018, he hit for more power while striking out less. In 2019, he went nova, clubbing 32 homers with a .389 on-base percentage and 150 wRC+ en route to a 6.3-WAR season that garnered him a fourth-place MVP finish. He didn’t quite keep up that pace in the next two years, but from 2019 through 2021, Marte was the 34th-best hitter in baseball per WAR, right around Pete Alonso, Matt Olson, and Manny Machado. A dalliance in center field, where he never quite figured things out, hurt his defensive value. A series of lower-body injuries also hindered both his availability and his explosiveness when he was on the field. But injuries and all, he was the 11th-best hitter in the game by wRC+. We’re talking about a legitimate star, albeit one who played less than a full schedule thanks to his IL stays.
With three years left on his original deal — the last of the five guaranteed ones, plus two team options — the team looked at their future commitments and future prospects, and quite wisely chose to offer Marte another contract extension. That one was for five years and $76 million, three years and $52 million of which were new years and money. Again, it felt like a good deal for everyone involved. The Diamondbacks knew that they had a wave of young talent about to reach the majors, and they didn’t want to have to replace their best hitter just as the young guys peaked. Marte got a roughly market rate for those years, considering his injury history, and he avoided the miserable possibility of reaching free agency at age 31 in one of those offseasons that occur every so often, where every veteran hitter struggles to land a multi-year deal and a few stars suck up all the oxygen. In 2022, it wasn’t clear that Marte would maintain a high enough level of production to merit one of those market-topping deals; he was clearly extremely talented, but he was coming off of two straight injury-shortened seasons and didn’t have a defensive home.
After a so-so 2022, Marte has again taken flight. A return to second base has done wonders; he’s improving on defense every year and has averaged nearly 600 plate appearances per season, the healthiest stretch of his career. He posted another superlative offensive season last year, with a career-high 36 homers and a 151 wRC+. The Diamondbacks narrowly missed the playoffs then, but their future looks bright. They’re hoping to build the team around Corbin Carroll on offense, but he’ll need reinforcements, and Marte’s contract would have been up in three years (actually four counting the option, but that detracts from the symmetry). It feels like fate.
This time, the contract is for six years and $105 million starting right now, with an $11.5 million player option for a seventh year. Like the last extension, some of it is replacing an existing deal. To be precise, it’s replacing the entirety of the previous extension’s new years, which kicked in in 2025. Before this year, he was set to make $63.8 million over the next four years. Now he’s going to make $105 million over six years, for an effective addition of two years and $41.2 million plus a player option. Again, that doesn’t pay him like a superstar, but it feels like a market rate for his age-35 and 36 seasons, and the player option is a nice boost on the end. One accounting note: the contract is backdated relative to his existing deal, with only $41 million due over the next three years, as opposed to $51 million with the old structure.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but this feels like a good deal for both Marte and the Diamondbacks. The partnership is going great; why break it up? This time, Marte is getting his age-35 and 36 seasons guaranteed, with a smaller-dollar player option for age 37. The rate is nothing special, but three years? Only one player aged 35 or over signed a deal of three years or longer this winter. That would be Nathan Eovaldi, and pitchers age differently than hitters. The last hitter to sign a three-year deal in free agency that started at age 35 or older? José Abreu. Before that, you’d be looking at Tommy La Stella or DJ LeMahieu. It’s not something that happens very often, is my point. That’s partially because most superstars sign gargantuan long-term deals in their late 20s, but it’s also because hitters tend to decline by their mid 30s.
That’s the reason Marte is doing it. That $40 million is a nice chunk of change, not far off from what he’d expect to make in free agency in a median outcome, and he gets to keep playing for the team where he’s excelled for nearly a decade. On Arizona’s side, it’s similar to before. Having some continuity would be nice, and the Diamondbacks aren’t afraid to spend, so why not spend on their long-term leader? Carroll’s future might be the brightest on the team, but Marte out-produced him last year, and both are inarguably among the game’s best. More years of Carroll and Marte is better. It’s easy math.
Clearly, this wasn’t an extension that had to happen. Marte’s existing deal would already keep him in Phoenix through 2028. That means that both sides wanted to do it, because otherwise, it would be easy to put it off. No agreement right now? No biggie. We can take it up at the All-Star break, or over the winter. No one’s going anywhere soon anyway. It’s a proactive choice by both sides when a veteran signs an extension this far before free agency, at least when an opt out isn’t involved.
I see why everyone’s happy here, though. Marte is a great player, and fun too. His massive righty power and completely different game as a lefty hitter is one of my favorite ways of showing off bat speed data to casual baseball fans – look at this cool thing that data can tell us about a fascinating player is a very good topic of conversation, unsurprisingly. He’s a solid defender these days, an all-around star.
Likewise, the Diamondbacks look like they’re here to stay. Their young players are arriving in waves. The veterans keep producing. Need a new ace? They’ll go out and sign Jordan Montgomery, and if that doesn’t work, they’ll upgrade to Corbin Burnes. If they could sign Ketel Marte in free agency, I’m sure they’d try to do that too, but it’s even more attractive to keep the Ketel Marte they have already in place. Good teams sign guys like Marte to contract extensions, and guys like that want to play for good teams. That’s exactly what happened here.
This deal doesn’t have a ton of implications for 2025. The team’s the same, the money is pretty similar, and the same can be said in every year before 2029. This extension isn’t about changing who the Diamondbacks are right now. It’s about preserving who they are right now, a competitive team with a spectacular offense with Marte as its metronome. When he goes, they go – and now that’s going to be true for many years to come.
