Carlos Beltran
JMB · August 28, 2004 at 11:55 am · Filed Under Mariners
Carlos Beltran has his season line at a very nice .271/.364/.569 right now. He has 35 homers, 68 walks and 33 stolen bases (in 36 attempts). Beltran’s a switch-hitter who hits both righties and lefties, and plays Gold Glove-level defense in center field. Best of all, he’ll only be 28 next season, easily leaving five or six “prime” years left on his career. He’s also a free agent at the end of the year. He’s everything the M’s need — how can he not be your #1 target this winter?
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24 Responses to “Carlos Beltran”
Two worlds. Scott Borras.
Clearly, he’s the #1 target. However, that doesn’t mean it’s OK to overpay for him, and overpaying will probably be necessary considering (a) he’s a Boras client; and (b) the Yankees will be all over him. What’s really insane about this is the Ms actually wouldn’t need a centerfielder if they’d move Ichiro over. They could really use Beltre, though, and I think there are going to be enough teams that view this year as a fluke to make it possible to get him for a decent price. Beltre, 5 years, $45M? You get him ages 26-30. I think that’s doable.
Two more words: Bill Bavasi
What sort of clubhouse presence is Carlos? Does he do the little things? Has he proven himself? Is he clutch?
I mean he is already starting with a problem by being a player entering his prime (q.v. Guillen, Carlos). He is not known for his off the field leadership (q.v. Wilson, Dan), or happening to get a hit in one very key moment (q.v. Spiezio, Scott). His hitting is improving, not regressing from an impossible peak (q.v. Aurilia, Rich)
However, in his defence, he does have a riduculously small sample size of at bats at Safeco (34) with which he has produced a .984 OPS (q.v. Ibanez, Raul), so there is a little ray of hope.
Two words: cheep ownership.
So, we should overpay for the Speizio’s/Ibanez’s/Cirillo’s of the world instead? We should have overpaid for Tejada, we should have overpaid for Pudge, and we should have overpaid for Vlad…
Sure beltran has great overall numbers. But look at his month by month breakdown:
april: .316/.434/.696 8hr
may: .222/.280/.407 3hr
june: .333/.421/.586 6hr
july: .235/.322/.578 9hr
august: .261/.377/.625 9hr
So sometimes you get a first rate offensive player, and other times you get scott spezio with a couple more home runs. I have him on my fantasy team, and it’s amazingly painful to watch; his last few days are basically salvaging his august, which was another neverending sequence of fielders choices, strikeouts, and solo home runs.
You point out his SB count. You would be amazed to see how many times he has hit into a FC, then stole second. Not exactly the kind of play one should look for.
That being said, sure, he has his upsides. But watching him play in houston has been disappointing at best, despite having great hitters behind him. Gambling that he will put up the kind of numbers he has in the past on a new team, especially at the price he will command with boras as his agent and the yankees bidding, is just not appealing.
Taking a larger sample size, his last three seasons splits in those months looks a lot better.
Outs will be made and if what you say is true, it’s even better that he advanced to second base. This guy hardly ever gets thrown out trying to steal. FCs are better than DPs, if you had to chose one.
He IS our #1 priority. He will most likely also be the Yankees #1 priority. We will have to over pay him to come here, and even then, wouldn’t you choose the Yankees instead? There are tough times ahead for the M’s and their fans.
Err, yeah, because in previous seasons he was a lot more consistent. This year he hasn’t been. Also his numbers at home this year, in both kauffman and minute maid, have been _awful_.
Don’t get me wrong, he is still A-list talent, but he is _not_ all upside, and he’s not a sure thing. And he will get a $100 mil contract.
Sure, he can be the M’s #1 target. Truly an honorary position, because the M’s will not be his first target. Or second. Or third. Or…honestly I can’t imagine how far down the list the M’s would fall. If anyone looks like a Yankee slamdunk it’s Carlos. But even if the Yanks’ interest dried, surely he’d have no desire to come here. The first requirement is probably to beat all other offers by 20% just to be in the game.
Bucky’s line prior to tonight (currently 2-3, HR, 2B, 3 RBI):
.286 .359 .524
Not that he can play CF, but at 300K that’s a pretty nice line for a whole season.
A lot of people seem to believe Seattle’s an undesireable place for a FA to sign. Why? Seems to me like 90% of players base the decision about where to sign purely on money — especialy Boras clients. Seattle has the resources (if not the know-how) to put a good team together around whomever they sign, a good fan base, a nice city, a nice stadium… What’s the problem? Just the fact it’s a pitcher’s park? I’m not convinced.
Well, a big reason why it’s not desirable is because the owners are cheap and don’t give long-term deals. And now we suck and we won’t be good next year without a huge increase in payroll or a modern miracle.
Chris — One small factor against Seattle is that many players want to play someplace close to home or within reasonable commuting distance from home. Since players live disproportionately in the southwest and Texas (you can train year-round, and there’s no income tax so they don’t get double-taxed for being baseball players) it makes it a little harder to get them up here. Plus, we’ve got a brutal travel schedule compared to every team except Montreal. If you’re a player and given two similar offers from, say, the Diamondbacks and the Mariners, and you live in Texas, you’d probably pick the Diamondbacks.
That said, I think part of Seattle’s problem is that we haven’t done a good job selling the city, the fans, and the park to prospective free agents. St. Louis almost gets first dibs on free agents they’re interested in because it’s known as such a supportive place to play with a great organization, even though their stadium’s one of the old ashtray-style ones. Their players go out and evangelize to prospective acquisitions about how great it is to be there… that’s what the Mariners need to build if they’re going to compete for free agents in the long term.
They haven’t done it because they don’t believe they need the kind of star free agents who make decisions based on intangible factors like that… which is weird, considering how much they’re into intangibles.
Dan wrote:
april: .316/.434/.696 8hr
may: .222/.280/.407 3hr
june: .333/.421/.586 6hr
july: .235/.322/.578 9hr
august: .261/.377/.625 9hr
I don’t get your point here — Beltran had one bad month. Comparing him to Spiezio is laughable.
jason
i would much rather, at this point, sign beltre to fill the gaping hole at 3rd (sorry, justin), get that guy from cuba who is a first basemen and, by everybody’s predictions, not only has very good chance of landing with the mariners if they want him, but also projects as a high level, high quality defense, switch hitting w/power prospect. then you maybe fill in the hole at number one in the rotation by going with Pavano (if he’s not asking too much)… and then from there, see how it works out.
if the offense seems weak next year out of the gate, deal a few of our pitching prospects (since we have so many) for some pop and contact to place into the order.
seems do-able to me.
and the, of course, put ichiro in center field.
I don’t think the Mariners can be very selective.
I hope they just throw what they feel is a reasonable amount of money at ANY of them that can hit that means from Delgado to Sexson to Glaus. Try your best to get the top tier as well.
Beltran AND Beltre? Sure.
One thing will be that for the M’s to have ANY chance at contending (even a slim one), they’ll need to get rid of the logjam they have on underpowered corner OF’ers. Ichiro, Winn, Ibanez, Reed, Snelling, Strong and Choo make, what 7? None of whom are likely to post the sort of .290/30/100 numbers you see out of a lot of corner OF’ers, ever (maybe in Choo or Reed’s case if they REALLY develop over 2-3 years, but I wouldn’t be betting the mortgage on it).
My guess is you could move Winn to get a power arm in the bullpen, then add Beltran, put Reed in LF, and either get what you can for Ibanez or move him to 1B to semi-platoon with Bucky. That at least helps the logjam.
I see 2 bad months for Beltran and 1 so-so month. Also, he’s going to get ALOT of money, and I don’t think he’s worth that, not with the yankees in the mix.
Just once, could we overpay a great player to hit .300 with 30-40HR instead of overpaying mediocre players to hit .210??
Ichiro may be an “underpowered” corner OF but he’s a damed good one. He’d be chasing down a runs record too if he were on a team that drove him in more. While he doesn’t produce as many homers as a “prototype” RF, he does get on base and is lethal defensively. Should he be a CF? perhaps. I think he’s fine as the RF. Going after a CF who can actually go back on a ball is a priority. Now, if the M’s can find a RF/LF that’s can rake and field, then Ichiro is good for CF. As it stands I don’t see that or Beltran coming to Seattle.
I forsee a trend that finds the M’s livin’ like Cleveland two years ago. There’s too much wrong with the team to fix it next year. The Mariners know this; that’s why they kept Melvin (the ONLY reason to do so). If they can get (over pay for) one star Free Agent (Beltre for 70m/5-6 years), then perhaps someone 2nd tier starter (Matt Morris?) they’re only one year away from contending again. This will still leave holes at cf, ss, the pen, 1b and one or 2 starters.
The problem with living like Cleveland is that they don’t have anything to wait for. What high upside prospects do the Mariners have that aren’t already contributing? Sure, Jose Lopez MIGHT be great, but whatever they gain from his development is lost in guys like Bucky, Ichiro, and Ibanez declining. Felix is the only guy they could wait for, and anyone who’s betting that a Mariners pitching prospect won’t have part of his arm fall off and get lost in a rain gutter is foolish.
Sure, the Mariners have huge problems but they don’t have gigantic sums of money tied up in worthless players (guys like Spiezio are pretty much worthless but they still have some uses and aren’t making Chan Ho or Dreifort money). According to Dugout Dollars, the Mariners have about $35mil less tied up next year than this year, and that doesn’t include “the Sasaki Money.” They might reduce payroll, though.
They can get two top tier position players (1B/OF and 3B) and even grab a pretty good starter and reliever with that money. They can win the division if some guys have good years and they get good pickups. (won’t happen)
Also, I’m not a huge fan of Beltre. He’s having a monster year this year at age 25 but remember when Richard Hidalgo had one at age 24? I’d rather have Troy Glaus (age 27) if he has a good chance of being healthy (although I know nothing about his injury situation right now). He’ll almost certainly get a lot less money and we have pretty good injury insurance in Leone. If Beltre and Glaus are healthy, I’d bet money (but not much) on Glaus having the better 2005 and 2006.
I have a feeling Delgado will be the Mariners’ target though. He’s past his prime, won’t draw a ton of interest from other teams, “fits the ballpark,” is clearly declining, and would probably make all of us angry.
While getting Beltran would be great because it would assure that Randy Winn was out of centerfield, I agree with the comments of those who say it ain’t going to happen unless they spend their whole free agent budget on him. Next year the Mariners need to get two decent free agent starters to replace Moyer and Franklin, a closer and a reliable set up guy to fill the spots of Soriano and Guardado, a centerfielder who can run the ball down in the gaps, and a shortstop who can hit better than ramon santiago and field better than rich aurilia. Fixing centerfield by signing Beltran will leave too many holes in other places
The top 2 comments say that we can’t go after Beltran because he’s represented by Scott Boras, so instead we should focus on Adrian Beltre…well, Beltre’s a Boras client too!
As far as Kendry Morales goes, I haven’t heard a lot about him lately. The last I heard was in early August about how he was granted residency in the Dominican and was eligible for free agency.