Ketel Marte and the Long History of MLB Players No-Showing Their Games

Last night, Arizona Diamondbacks second baseman Ketel Marte didn’t show up for work. And that was a little bit of an inconvenience for everyone involved, given that his workplace for the evening was supposed to be Fenway Park, for a game against the Boston Red Sox. Seemingly hoping against hope that he would be rolling into the clubhouse at any moment, the team postponed releasing their lineup for the night for as long as possible, until 15 minutes before gametime. When it finally came, Marte wasn’t on it. Nor did the team seemingly have any idea of where Marte actually was, according to manager Torey Lovullo. He had clearly not informed anyone of his absence, leading to chaos and confusion.

“It’s been a crazy day,” said Lovullo, speaking to media after the game, an 11-1 drubbing of the Snakes as they desperately hunt for the final NL wild card spot. “All I know is that he’s dealing with a personal issue. We’re trying to figure that out. He didn’t show up today and he was put on the restricted list. That’s as much as I know right now. I knew that there was something going on today when I met with (the media), but I still believed he was going to be here. He just didn’t show up. I know there was a lot of discussions about it at different points in time in the clubhouse today. There was a lot of curiosity. We care for Ketel.”

Speculation and conflicting reports have since been running rampant. There was disagreement over whether Ketel Marte had ever actually arrived in Boston. A Diamondbacks beat writer for The Arizona Republic, Nick Piecoro, reported that “To be clear: I’m told Ketel Marte is doing OK physically, he just didn’t show up to the ballpark tonight,” only to contradictorily tweet just a few hours ago that “Ketel Marte is returning to Arizona to undergo an MRI on his knee, according to a source.” Is this a player who is hurt, or a player that the team is now running interference for, to cover up the more embarrassing possibility that he simply skipped out on them for some reason? If he was injured, why would he not have simply informed his team?

I really enjoy watching Ketel Marte play and root for him. Not sure when it started, I just like him. If he’s troubled, I hope he’s ok and is able to get help if needed.

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— Johnny Orioles Fan (@johnnyorioles.bsky.social) 3:09 PM · Aug 18, 2026

Perhaps the bigger question is, what has been going on in the headspace of Ketel Marte in the last few seasons? Despite enjoying some of the strongest offensive seasons of his career with the D-backs, including a third place NL MVP finish in 2024, the late-blooming Marte has become a persistent question off the field. Mercurial and highly emotional according to teammates and his organization, he has unpredictably asked for days off at inopportune moments, such as immediately going into the 2025 All-Star break. It was later reported that Marte both went on an unscheduled vacation to his country of origin (the Dominican Republic) during this period, but also returned to his home in Arizona while the rest of the club was in St. Louis, citing a home break-in/burglary. According to another beat writer, Marte knew at the time that he would “miss a game or two,” but again seemingly left the team in the lurch.

Then there are the on-field oddities. It was only a month ago, in fact, that Marte allowed a game to end when he could have prolonged it simply by tapping his helmet. Thanks to MLB’s new system for automated balls and strikes (ABS) challenges, players can challenge a bad strike call, provided they don’t encounter a childish umpire throwing a tantrum. In a game against the Cardinals, Marte came to bat with the Diamondbacks down by a single run, and the tying run standing at second base. Despite the fact that the D-backs had both of their ABS challenges remaining, Marte watched as a high fastball several inches above the top of the zone was called a strike, and simply walked off dejectedly rather than challenging it. The move left everyone on both the field and the broadcast booth in surprise, with both fans and Marte’s own teammates tapping their heads to indicate that he should have challenged.

What does one make of this? A guy who simply doesn’t really want to play baseball any more, despite being only in the second year of a six-year, $116 million contract? Or perhaps a player facing some kind of undisclosed mental or emotional struggles? Whatever it is, it seems to have become a pattern with Ketel Marte, one that has placed the Diamondbacks in a very awkward bind.

Marte, however, is hardly alone in being a player who just didn’t manage to show up for a Major League Baseball game. Although they’re certainly not common, MLB no-shows have been happening all the way back to the dead ball era, when they were practically commonplace for legendarily eccentric individuals like Hall of Fame power pitcher Rube Waddell, a man who once reportedly missed a game because he got caught up playing a match of marbles with neighborhood children. Waddell was the ultimate superstar liability of his era; a dominating pitcher who was impossible for teams to control or corral into pitching on command. Among his many reasons for missing games, he would apparently routinely elect to go fishing rather than make scheduled starts, was obsessed with chasing after fire trucks he saw passing on the street, and was said to get so easily distracted by dogs that fans of the opposing team would bring puppies into the stands and hold them up, causing Waddell to abandon the game to go interact with them.

Rube Waddell:

– was bitten by a lion
– got in a fistfight with a teammate after making fun of his straw hat
– passed out drunk in the middle of a game

also, all of this:

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— birky (@birky.bsky.social) 12:42 PM · Jul 31, 2026

Through the decades, meanwhile, the reasoning behind MLB no-shows has ranged from the absurd to the genuinely irresponsible. The absences have sometimes been received with relatively good-natured ribbing, as in the case of the Braves’ pitcher Pascual Pérez, who famously missed one of his starts in 1982 shortly after moving to Atlanta because he got lost on the city’s Interstate 285 and wound up driving in circles for three hours as the minutes ticked down toward game time. Pérez finally arrived a few minutes after the game started, when he had already been replaced by another starter. He was fined $100, and wound up with the nickname “Perimeter Pascual” from teammates, who also gifted him a custom warm-up jacket with “I-285” written on the back. On the other hand, Ken Griffey Jr.’s Seattle Mariners teammates were somewhat less accommodating in 2010 when, during his final season in the league, reports emerged that he had been unavailable to pinch-hit in a game because he had actually been sleeping in the clubhouse at the time. Griffey abruptly retired a few weeks later, ending his own Hall of Fame career on a rather sour note.

Sometimes, an instance of an MLB no-show has actually resulted in formal punishment, as was the case for Matt Harvey of the New York Mets in 2017, when he failed to show up at Citi Field for a Saturday game after he had reportedly stayed out late partying on Friday night … and golfed on Saturday morning! He was given a three-game suspension for the unexcused absence. There’s even been at least one incident, to my knowledge, where a no-show ended up being the last action of a player’s professional career: In 2020, Yoenis Céspedes failed to report to the field for an August game shortly after the start of that COVID-shortened oddity of a mini-season, opting out of the rest of the season due to health concerns. He seemingly did so, however, without informing anyone in the organization, simply going AWOL. It would be the last time he would play in MLB, ending what had been a productive career.

As for Ketel Marte, it’s pretty difficult to accept that he’s merely dealing with some kind of lingering knee issue, and that is what led to all of this drama on Monday and Tuesday. Surely if that was the case, then Marte would have been merely placed on the injured list, rather than the restricted list where he now isn’t even technically receiving pay. The restricted list isn’t just some thing you pop a player onto on a whim; it most often crops up when a player has unapproved absences or legal entanglements. Suffice to say, it seems safe to assume that there’s a pretty awkward vibe in the Diamondbacks clubhouse these days, what with the possibility that one of their key offensive players may or may not show up to work while the team is one game back in the hunt for a wild card spot. Hopefully, wherever Ketel Marte may be, he’s getting whatever kind of assistance he actually needs, and we’ll see one of baseball’s most dynamic talents back on the field sooner rather than later.