The Good and Bad from Noelvi Marte in Triple-A

Noelvi Marte was a favorite of many fans for their breakout pick in 2026. A rollercoaster start to a career that has seen top prospect status, headlining a trade, a great debut, PED suspension, and a mixed 2025. This season was supposed to be the year Marte broke out, instead he’s already been demoted to Triple-A Louisville.

His demotion was only after 11 games, but the at-bats we were seeing warranted the move. A .138/.194/.138 line with no clear plan at the plate and a free-swinging mentality was doing nothing for the Cincinnati Reds or Marte himself.

Joining Louisville would not only give Marte a chance to reset, refine his game, but also get reps in center field, a position he has not played until now.

On the surface, everything looks great since joining Louisville. Marte has hit .373/.455/.597 with three home runs, eight stolen bases, and a 177 wRC+. But, we know minor league numbers can be deceiving.

In order to get a true grasp on Marte’s Triple-A stint I went back and watched every at-bat he has taken since joining Louisville, through May 2n Although time consuming I believe this is the only way to truly judge how a player looks instead of relying only on a box score.

Here’s what I thought was good, and bad, across his first 15 games.

The Good

Anyone who is hitting over .370 with three home runs across 17 games is doing something well and that hold true for Marte. You can tell that he is simply more talented than the majority of the players on the field and you especially see that at the plate.

Marte has been making mostly solid contact posting an average exit velocity of 89.9 mph. There were a number of times that Marte posted 105 mph, 107 mph, 108 mph batted balls including a 108 mph double in his first game.

Across his first seven games he had five batted balls of 104.4 mph or harder including a 107.4 mph home runs and a loud 110mph lineout to short. The next handful of games also included some impressive exit velocities but not with the regularity of the first seven.

The hard contact was the first box I wanted to see checked and I’d say he passed. Next, I wanted to see how his swing and miss issues we saw, combined with his approach, faired.

When Marte was in the majors to begin the season he was swinging through far too many pitches posting a disastrous 32% whiff rate. He still had a few swing and misses outside of the zone but within in the zone he has posted a 93% contact rate.

He protected the zone fairly well on the few occasions that we worked a count deep enough and needed to foul off pitches. It was encouraging to see him drive outside pitches to right field, some included in the video above, but that was not always the case with pitches on the outside (more on that later).

One at bat that stood out to me was in his third game. He started the game with a line drive to right for a single at 104.4 mph off the bat and then hit a lazy fly out to right the next at bat. They had been working him away but in the third at bat tried to come in and Marte was ready.

The result? A lineout to short. But, this was one of the few times Marte looked like he was up there to attack pitches instead of reacting to them. It was one of the better swings I saw him take in some time and the ball came off the bat at 110 mph. A case of process over results.

While the loud contact and baseline stats are exciting everything must come with context. If you watch minor league baseball you will notice how often pitches land in the middle of the zone. Or how a flyout suddenly becomes a triple due to a poor route in right field. Not only are these common, they happened with Marte which is context that must be noted.

The Bad

What I am about to say is not meant to be read as tearing down a player, but instead providing information that is important. No matter what player you highlight there is going to be bad mixed in with good and Marte is no different.

The biggest concern I saw was Marte chasing outside of the zone. His 24% Triple-A chase rate is a good number on the surface, but when you watch the games you notice how often uncompetitive pitches play into the equation which does not test his borderline decisions often.

In fact, of his 10 walks, six were a result of uncompetitive pitches leading to the walk. Three of those walks were on four pitches that did not come anywhere near the zone. I point this out to say Marte was not laying off nice pitches that just missed the zone. Mostly, because he swung at them.

The worst at-bat I saw from Marte was his first on April 30. Three pitches, all well outside of the zone, all swung and missed for a quick strikeout. He did not look like he had a plan at the plate and simply was up there to take swings.

Even some of his best results came on pitches that were clearly a ball. Marte expanded his zone by an inch or more in just about every at-bat. He especially struggled with chasing pitches high out of the zone and often swung through those pitches. Low and out of the zone he also went after which did lead to some hits, but mostly groundballs which brings me to my next point.

Marte has posted a 49% groundball rate since joining the Bats. A number of those groundballs were outside off speed pitches that he pulled to short or third on slow choppers. This has been an issue in the majors as well which was concerning to see carry over to the minors.

Another negative aspect of what I saw is a bit nitpicky. Obviously, every middle-middle pitch is not going to lead to a positive result but Marte did not capitalize on as many as I would have expected. He had a 89 mph fastball right down the middle and popped it up, but did hit a middle-middle pitch for a triple later in the game.

I had made note of five other middle-middle pitches where Marte made contact and all resulted in an out. Two groundouts, a pop out, a lazy fly out, and a 103 mph off the bat line out.

The concern here is not only missing pitches he should do the most damage on, but where you have a tendancy to chase outside of the zone you are not making the pitcher work back into the zone. The few occasions he earns a middle-middle pitch he needs to do damage on those.

The Miscellaneous

One thing I continued to notice was how often Marte swung at the first pitch. If not the first, the second. I counted nine first pitch results. Not just swings, but nine first pitches put into play. I put this under miscellaneous because they weren’t always bad decisions. Several of these pitches were strikes and worthy of a swing, to various degrees.

Of those balls put into play Marte was 4-for-9, which could be classified as good, but placed here due to some being poor swing decisions.

Another strange aspect of Marte’s game that I noticed had to do with the ABS system. Marte challenged a total of four times and was unsuccessful his first three attempts. The fourth was successful, leading to a walk.

I’m not sure if there’s much to takeaway from this sample size but you could say it only adds to him not having a great eye for the zone. I’ll let you be the judge of that.

Lastly, his defense. I did not watch him in the field due to time constraints, but do want to mention he’s played seven games in center, which has piqued my interest. The Reds have been using Dane Myers in center and TJ Friedl in left at times against lefties and I think Cincinnati would welcome more competition in center.

If Marte starts to get more reps in center and can prove to be at least a reasonable defensive option there his path back to the Reds roster gets that much easier.

Final Thoughts

I went into this with the idea that I would come out of the experiment writing a glowing review of Marte. Well, I didn’t get there. I wouldn’t say I feel more negative about his outlook as before but I did see a number of deficiencies that I think would be exposed at the major league level.

The loud contact was promising but mostly expected. Especially when you consider the pitches, and their quality, that the contact came on. His swing decisions were concerning and often the results were groundballs or hits that would more often be caught by major leaguers.

I think Marte needs more time in Triple-A. The work still needs to be done on practicing what will make him successful in the majors and not just taking advantage of sub-par pitching in the minors. I do think that he can get to a level where he can be a successful regular in Cincinnati, but he has work to be done.