PHOENIX — Ketel Marte on Monday addressed criticism in a recent story in the Arizona Republic newspaper that he asks for too many days off and that by doing so he has irritated some of his teammates and coaches.
“I can’t control the outsiders,” Marte said through interpreter/coach Rolando Valles, speaking before the Diamondbacks’ 3-1 loss to the Guardians at Chase Field. “I feel fine about the fact that my intent is always to help the team win and support my teammates and everybody around the team. Sometimes that criticism helps me be more motivated to do my job, which is helping the team perform or succeed.”
Marte taking days off first gained attention during the final week of the 2024 regular season.
The Diamondbacks were fighting for an NL Wild Card berth. On a Sunday afternoon, they coughed up an 8-0 lead to lose. They headed home for the final six games of the season and Marte told manager Torey Lovullo that he needed to take Monday off.
Arizona lost that game and the series to the Giants and then lost two of three games against the Padres in the final series of the season. The D-backs wound up losing out on the postseason in a three-way tiebreaker with the Mets and Braves.
Marte defended the times he has asked for days off.
“In my opinion, it’s something needed,” he said. “I don’t think that it’s too many days off. I’ve had injuries in the past, and this is a plan that has been integrated with the coaching staff and myself, in order to keep me on the field the longest.”
This year, Marte went to the Dominican Republic following his appearance in the All-Star Game and missed the team’s first three games of the second half. According to the Arizona Republic report, several teammates were annoyed that Marte missed time when they were trying to stay alive in the postseason race and avoid a sell-off at the Trade Deadline.
A complicating factor in all of it was that Marte’s house in Phoenix was burglarized during the All-Star Game. He said $400,000 worth of property was stolen.
While the trip to the Dominican Republic was planned before he knew about the break-in, Marte said, the emotions he experienced caused him to abandon his plan to be back immediately after the break. He missed three games.
“Initially, the intent was to come back on Thursday and be with my team and practice,” said Marte, referring to a team workout that day. “I want to publicly apologize for not backing that up. I mean, obviously due to the circumstance of my situation, I got frustrated and was in a bad spot. But I truly want to apologize for my teammates and everybody else that is supporting the team.”
The Diamondbacks beat the Rockies on Thursday, the day the story first ran but then dropped the next three games. After a report in USA Today said similar things about Marte, Arizona shortstop Geraldo Perdomo interrupted Lovullo’s postgame media session with a spirited defense of Marte.
That seemed to give the story new legs. On Monday, the team hoped to put it to bed once and for all by making Marte available to speak and then Lovullo.
“What I will say about Ketel are the things that I know,” Lovullo said. “He’s a great teammate; he’s a great young man. He goes out there and plays hard every single day for the Arizona Diamondbacks, and he just wants to win baseball games. That’s it. And I really don’t want to say much more than that. It’s over, I want to put it behind us, because we got baseball games.
“We got to go out there and win, and I think that’s our main focus. We put ourselves right back into this [postseason] race by playing good baseball and focusing on baseball. Maybe the past couple of days that’s drifted away from us, but I think at the end of the day, we got to really go out there and fight together.”
