2 NY Mets players off to surprising starts, 1 playing as expected to open the season

The New York Mets are off to a 3-3 start to the year. After losing the first series of the season against the Houston Astros, they took two of three against the Miami Marlins. They capped off their most recent game, the final game in the Marlins' series, with an extra-inning thriller. It has only been six games into the year, but some players are performing much better than expected, such as these two, who many didn't put high expectations on. However, there's a third player off to a slow start that should have been completely expected.

Starling Marte is off to a nice start

Starling Marte is off to a phenomenal start to the 2025 season. However, given how poorly Marte has done the last two seasons, his hot start to 2025 is a welcoming but very unexpected surprise for the former two-time All-Star outfielder. He struggled in both 2023 and 2024, not just with his performance but also with his health.

Marte slashed just .258/.314/.357 with a .296 wOBA, and 90 wRC+ between ‘23 and ‘24. He only hit a dozen home runs with a sub-.100 isolated slugging percentage, and walked in 6% of his 711 plate appearances. He didn't play 100 games in either year, missing large chunks of time due to injury, with the only positive of these two seasons being he went 40/45 in stolen base attempts.

But in three games thus far in 2025, Marte already has two hits, including a home run. It's obviously a microscopic sample size, but his exit velo through these three games is 97.3 MPH. He has struck out four times, however, and hasn't drawn a walk. Marte has always been prone to getting hit by pitches and already has three. But he might be able to sustain a better rate of production this year compared to the previous two years if he stays healthy and the Mets continue to utilize him mostly against left-handed pitchers.