Diamondbacks second baseman Ketel Marte is on pace to have arguably his best season in 2024. Marte is batting .283 with 14 home runs, 39 RBI, and a .852 OPS over 70 games. He’s been the key player in the Diamondbacks lineup, providing impact with his bat at the top of their lineup. On top of that Mookie Betts, another frontrunner in the NL MVP race, suffered a fractured left hand in the Dodgers’ win over the Royals Sunday, and will likely be out until August. Considering those two things in mind, the question shifts to “Is Ketel Marte the new frontrunner in the National League’s Most Valuable Player race?”
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!The key word in that award is value. While there is no perfect stat that encapsulates value, the one that does the best job is Wins Above Replacement (WAR). Nearing the halfway point of the season, he currently leads all National League players in Baseball Reference’s Wins Above Replacement metric with 4.0 bWAR. On Fangraphs, he ranks 3rd in the NL in WAR at 3.1 fWAR behind Betts and Shohei Ohtani.
To make a more fair argument, I’ve decided to take the average of the two WAR metrics. Here’s how the three players rank in that metric.
- Mookie Betts: 3.65 aWAR (3.8 bWAR, 3.5 fWAR)
- Ketel Marte: 3.55 aWAR (4.0 bWAR, 3.1 fWAR)
- Shohei Ohtani: 3.45 aWAR (3.5 bWAR, 3.4 fWAR)
Betts slightly edges out Marte in average WAR, but with him out possibly up to two months it will take him out of the MVP race. Ohtani is very close and will be leaned upon more by the Dodgers moving forward. Marte lags behind the Dodgers’ superstar player in counting stats such as home runs, RBI, and stolen bases, but has the advantage of playing a position at an elite level in a year where Ohtani will not be able to show his full value to a ballclub.
Circling back to the Wins Above Replacement stat, we have to take a deeper dive into what is generating Marte’s value and why it’s above everyone else. He’s not necessarily the most productive hitter in the National League, ranking seventh in park-adjusted OPS at 143 and batting runs at +16. He’s also building a lot of value with the glove, as his +11 fielding runs and 1.3 defense WAR both lead all NL players. Since the award is about the most valuable player, defense has to be taken into consideration when making the argument for which players are most deserving.
Ketel Marte and the Diamondbacks still have 90 games to go in the 2024 season, so a lot can change in the MVP race over that time. If he can keep this pace up, not only could he be a candidate to start his second All-Star game, but also be the first player in franchise history to win an MVP award.
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Michael McDermott covers the Arizona Diamondbacks and Arizona Cardinals for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on X via @MichaelMcDMLB
