Meet Yunior Marté, the ‘devastating’ reliever who could help the Phillies’ bullpen

The Dominican may be the solution the Phillies need for their current pitching woes.

Phillies pitcher Yunior Marte throws the baseball in the third inning during a spring training game.Read moreYong Kim / Staff Photographer

Published Mar. 26, 2023, 4:20 p.m. ET

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Phillies pitching Caleb Cotham can sum up right-hander Yunior Marté in one word: fast. Really fast. It’s not just that the Dominican reliever can throw the ball hard. It’s also that he is efficient. On Feb. 28 against the Toronto Blue Jays, he needed just 11 pitches to mow down three hitters. On March 3 against the Detroit Tigers, he needed 10. On March 6, against the Baltimore Orioles, he needed eight.

Cotham jokes that sometimes, Marté’s outings go so quickly that he almost misses them.

“He goes out there, just dumping 99 mph at the bottom of the zone, with a really good slider,” Cotham said. “You blink and the outing is over. I’m watching from the dugout and I’m like, ‘What just happened?’”

Every spring, there seems to be at least one pitcher who comes out of nowhere and dazzles. This spring, it is Marté, who was acquired via trade from San Francisco in January in exchange for left-hander Erik Miller. The 28-year-old who got his start in the Kansas City system in 2013 made his big league debut with the Giants last season and struggled. He pitched to a 5.44 ERA in 39 games (48 innings) with 44 strikeouts and 22 walks. He walked batters at a 10.3% clip, one of the highest rates of his pro career.

But despite all of that, there were some indications that he was heading toward a breakout. Marté was one of best in baseball last season at avoiding hard contact — he ranked in the top 3 percentile in MLB in barrel rate, according to Baseball Savant, while his fastball velocity ranked in the top 6 percentile. The biggest objective for him coming into spring training was to throw strikes.

And for the most part, he has done that. Marté has issued just three walks in nine outings this spring. His 2.45 ERA was inflated by one rough outing — his last one, on March 24, against the Blue Jays in Dunedin, when he allowed two earned runs in 1⅔ innings. Before that, he had allowed just one earned run over his past eight games.

Marté thinks that this might be due to his experience, and offseason preparation, but he doesn’t underestimate the impact of the Phillies’ pitching staff. He tinkered too much when he was in the Giants organization. One day he would try one grip; another day, another grip. He’d switch up his mechanics. He’d switch up his arm action. He struggled to process so much information at once. Things feel more simple now.

“I feel much better,” Marté said. “I’m attacking the strike zone regularly. I’ve been working very hard and that work is showing.”

Cotham sees Marté’s mindset as the biggest difference. There are some tweaks the Phillies have made — how to better throw his sinker to lefties was a point of focus — but they have been small.

“I think for him, it was just the belief that he can throw the ball over the plate,” Cotham said. “He’s not trying to be perfect. He’s trying to force action. He’s trying to force pressure on the hitter right from the start. And he can do that because he throws really hard.

“It’s tough when you’re suffocating the strike zone. You create a feeling of pressure — the pitch clock, you’re throwing strikes, guys are working faster, hitters are working faster. They’re behind in the count, so they’re sped up. It’s all a snowball effect.”

Because of Marté’s velocity and efficiency, the Phillies believe he could be a candidate to give them multiple innings in the bullpen. He has options, but it seems likely that he’ll start the season with the big league club. The Phillies see him as a pitcher who can complement the bullpen right now.

“He’s devastating to righties,” Cotham said. “He can go get righties as good as anybody, especially when he’s throwing strikes. He’s just another option. He went one-plus the other day and it looked pretty easy for him. The ability to go back out and take down, potentially, multiple innings … he has the capability of doing that because he can get guys out really fast. He’s pitching maybe a little more to contact. He’s done a really nice job.”