Yunior Marte signs with NPB's Rakuten Eagles after Pirates release

Yunior Marte is heading back to Japan. The right-hander, released by the Pittsburgh Pirates over the weekend, is signing with the Rakuten Eagles of Nippon Professional Baseball, per a team announcement cited by MLB Trade Rumors, with a hat tip to Yuri Karasawa of Yakyu Cosmopolitan.

What happened

Marte's path to Rakuten was neither short nor smooth. Earlier this season, he appeared in one game with the Cincinnati Reds — a single outing that produced four runs allowed in one-third of an inning, yielding a season ERA of 108.00. MLB Trade Rumors noted the figure is "absurd-looking" while also observing that a single rough appearance offers very little to work with analytically. Following that lone appearance, the Reds designated Marte for assignment.

From there, the procedural machinery of roster management took over. Upon clearing waivers, Marte opted for free agency rather than accepting an outright assignment to the minors — a choice available to players with sufficient service time once they clear the 48-hour outright waiver process. A couple of days later, he signed a minor-league deal with Pittsburgh. Minor-league contracts do not place a player on the 40-man roster, and this one, per the reporting, did not lead to a major-league opportunity with the Pirates. The club granted Marte his release over the weekend.

At the time of that release, Danny Demilio of Pittsburgh Sports Now reported that Marte was likely headed back to Japan — making the Rakuten announcement a development that, per the reporting, was not entirely unexpected.

Why it matters

The signing marks what is effectively Marte's departure from MLB, at least for now. Per MLB Trade Rumors, this will be his second stint in NPB, meaning Rakuten represents a return rather than an unknown destination. For a pitcher who has spent parts of four big-league seasons navigating roster margins — designations for assignment, waiver claims, minor-league deals, and outright assignments — the move to a stable NPB situation carries its own logic, even if the reporting stops well short of characterizing his intentions or future plans.

The broader arc here is one that plays out quietly every summer: a pitcher who has held a roster spot in the majors, absorbed a rough stretch, worked through the waiver and minor-league deal circuit, and ultimately found a better fit elsewhere. The facts are what they are, and they belong to Marte.

The numbers

Across parts of four big-league seasons, Marte has posted a 5.94 ERA in 113 2/3 innings, per MLB Trade Rumors. That career line, accumulated over a stretch that included time with multiple organizations, provides the fuller context that a single one-third-inning appearance — however memorably logged — cannot. A 108.00 ERA is the kind of number that looks like a typo until you do the arithmetic, and even then it demands the caveat that MLB Trade Rumors itself supplied: one outing tells you very little.

The 31-year-old now takes that career line to Rakuten, where NPB's competitive environment will offer a different set of conditions than the ones that produced it.

Where the club stands

The Pittsburgh Pirates, meanwhile, are 82-80 (.506), sitting third in the NL Central, 21 games back in the division. Per the verified standings, they are eliminated from both the division race and the Wild Card race, with a rank of 5 in the Wild Card standings and 6.0 games relative to the cut line. They enter this week on a one-game winning streak.

The schedule ahead is a three-game home series against the Atlanta Braves at PNC Park. Paul Skenes is the probable starter for Tuesday, July 7, opposed by Hurston Waldrep. Jared Jones is lined up for Wednesday, July 8, against Grant Holmes. Mitch Keller closes the series Thursday, July 9, against Bryce Elder.

For a club in Pittsburgh's current position — playing out the string with a rotation that includes Skenes, Jones, and Keller — the departure of a pitcher who never appeared in a game for them is a footnote rather than a headline. The minor-league deal that brought Marte to the organization lasted only as long as it needed to, and the 40-man roster was never involved.

What we don't know yet

The Rakuten announcement, per MLB Trade Rumors, covers the signing itself, but the reporting does not include contract terms, length, or role. Whether Marte will work as a starter or reliever in NPB is not addressed in the material. His first NPB stint is referenced but not detailed — the reporting establishes that this is a return engagement without characterizing what the first one looked like.

It is also worth noting that the Pittsburgh release was described as happening "over the weekend" at the time of reporting, and Demilio's Pittsburgh Sports Now item flagged the Japan destination as likely at that point — meaning the Rakuten announcement closes a loop that had been left open for only a short window.

What to watch

The question most fans will reasonably ask is whether Marte could return to MLB after this NPB stint. The reporting does not address that, and the desk will not speculate. What the material does establish is that he has made this kind of move before — NPB is not a formal endpoint, and players have moved between the two leagues in both directions. The mechanics of how a future return would work, should one materialize, would depend on posting procedures and roster circumstances that are not part of this story.

For now, the transaction is complete per the team announcement, the Pittsburgh roster moves on, and Yunior Marte takes a 5.94 career ERA and one historically compact bad outing to his next chapter. The NPB record books have seen stranger arrivals.