For teams still looking to add this winter, there’s no shortage of valuable players on the market, as many of the top free agents in this year’s class are still available. But one player not on that list who provides a similar impact to those free agents is Diamondbacks second baseman Ketel Marte. How Arizona finds resolution to the possibility of trading Marte remains one of the biggest questions yet to be answered as we round the halfway point of the offseason.
It’s no secret that Arizona has been taking calls on its All-Star second baseman. D-backs GM Mike Hazen has stated that while it’s still unlikely the team moves Marte, they have been willing to listen to offers. And any team looking for a bona fide, superstar-level offensive player should be blowing up Hazen’s phone.
The past few years, it has been easy to forget just how good Marte is. But we’re not talking about some fringy star on a bad team. We’re talking about a perennial MVP candidate. Marte, who debuted with Seattle in 2015, has been one of the most consistent players in baseball over the better part of the past decade. He has recorded at least 25 home runs, 135 hits, 85 runs, 70 RBI and 60 walks each of the past three seasons.
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In 2025, Marte hit .283 with 28 homers and 72 RBI over 128 games for the D-backs, making his third NL All-Star appearance. In 2024, he finished third in NL MVP voting behind Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto. In 2023, he recorded 157 hits and 71 walks and helped lead the Diamondbacks to a World Series appearance.
In short, Marte is one of the top 10 players in MLB, and his production backs that up. But what makes Arizona’s longest tenured player so valuable in a possible trade is the production combined with one of the most team-friendly contracts in baseball. In 2026, Marte is entering the second year of a six-year, $116.5 million extension signed in April.
It’s not often that a player of Marte’s caliber is available, and it’s even more rare when such a player will earn less than $23 million per year throughout the length of his contract, and that creates tremendous value for Arizona in a possible trade.
Ketel Marte is an MVP-caliber player on a team-friendly contract, which means he could return a haul to Arizona in a trade.
(Taylor Wilhelm/Yahoo Sports)
Now, many fans around baseball might be asking: Why would the Diamondbacks want to trade away an MVP-caliber player such as Marte? That’s a fair question. And the reality is Arizona would need to be blown away by an offer in order to move the 32-year-old; the combination of his talent and his contract value give Arizona all the leverage.
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But like many playoff hopefuls around baseball, the D-backs are in serious need of young, controllable starting pitching. With Arizona boasting a surplus of offense, Marte gives them a trade piece who could bring back frontline starting pitching and then some in a deal.
The other reason that moving Marte now could make sense for Arizona is that he’ll receive full “10-and-5” rights (10 years of MLB service time, five years with the same team) in April. After that point, he can veto any trade proposed, which will significantly decrease the D-backs’ leverage in trade talks.
While it’s not guaranteed that Marte will change teams this winter, you could make the case that he would be the second-best player available in this year’s free-agent class if he were on the market. In a flawed class with many position players who fit a limited number of teams, in terms of roster construction, Marte is the type of hitter who would slot nicely in the middle of any lineup.
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The Boston Red Sox have been linked to Marte the most thus far. But the Seattle Mariners and Toronto Blue Jays are also good fits on paper, and the reality is that Marte would improve any contending team’s lineup. It remains to be seen if the Diamondbacks actually move him, but Marte is the type of player who can alter a team’s standing within its division, push a rebuilding team into its contention window or take a playoff team over the top.
When we look back on this offseason, it might turn out that Marte is the most impactful player to land on a new team before Opening Day in 2026.
