The Value of Adrian Beltre
Now that the season is effectively over, we can turn our attention from the daily matchups of the next game to bigger picture analysis. Today’s subject: Adrian Beltre.
Longtime readers will know that we’ve never hid our affection for Beltre. During the run-up to the 2004 offseason, I threw my entire support behind signing Beltre, and called the deal “a stunning accomplishment” for the Mariners. We were all optimistic about Beltre’s performance heading into the 2005 season.
Obviously, that first year was rough. He couldn’t have started his Mariner career any worse. His first two months in Seattle, he received 199 at-bats and hit a staggeringly terrible .236/.264/.357. Since most of baseball was already convinced that his 2004 season was a massive fluke, the early struggles simply fit into the already written narrative about a bad player who had a contract year and was now one of the worst free agent signings in baseball history. The story of the Adrian Beltre contract was written two months into a five year deal, and in general, the national perception of the contract hasn’t changed much at all, as Beltre is often referred to as overpaid or disappointing. MLB.tv users will remember the last Rangers series in Texas for Tom Grieve’s constant whipping of Beltre in particular.
Well, that story was wrong then and it’s wrong now. The only better third baseman in the American League is some guy named Rodriguez who is running away with the MVP award and is already practicing his hall of fame induction speach. The only Mariner players who helps puts wins on the board with more regularity are Ichiro and J.J. Putz, and they both can lay a claim to being the best in baseball at their respective positions.
Adrian Beltre is a star, an underrated asset whose remaining two years on his contract are nothing short of a bargain. Don’t believe me? Look at the 2006 performances, and the contracts signed, by four very similar hitters during the last year:
Aramis Ramirez: .291/.352/.561, 126 OPS+, $15 million a year for 5 years
Alfonso Soriano: .277/.351/.560, 132 OPS+, $18 million per year for 7 years
Carlos Lee: .300/.355/.540, 125 OPS+, $16 million per year for 6 years
Vernon Wells: .303/.357/.542, 126 OPS+, $18 million per year for 7 years
The market value seems pretty clear – the .300 hitter with power skillset, usually providing offense that is about 20 percent above league average, has been valued at between $15-$18 million per season for 5-7 years. Let’s look at how those guys are performing this year.
Aramis Ramirez: .315/.370/.539, 129 OPS+
Alfonso Soriano: .295/.332/.529, 116 OPS+
Carlos Lee: .298/.353/.519, 121 OPS+
Vernon Wells: .251/.307/.418, 87 OPS+
Besides Wells, they’re all performing right in line with expectations, showing the same basic skillset and performance level that their teams thought they were getting when they gave them long term, big money contracts.
Now, take a look at Adrian Beltre’s 2007 line: .283/.331/.503, 122 OPS+
The raw numbers are a little bit lower, but that’s Safeco Field for you. At home, Beltre’s hitting .270/.332/.430, but away from Safeco, it’s .295/.330/.567. From an offensive production standpoint, 2007 Beltre is basically indistringuishable from Carlos Lee, Alfonso Soriano, or Aramis Ramirez, and he’s several notches ahead of Vernon Wells.
And that’s not even getting into the non-offense values. There’s the defense, which is obviously a significant factor in Beltre’s favor. There’s the health – he hasn’t missed any real time due to injury in six years. And, to top it off, he has age on his side as he doesn’t turn 29 until after opening day next year.
What would a 28-year-old with Beltre’s performance record command as a free agent this winter? Not even accounting for possible inflation, it’s almost impossible to believe that Beltre would do significantly worse than last year’s crop of similar hitters. $15 million a year for 5 years would be the starting spot for negotiations, and it’s not hard to see him getting into the 6 years, $100 million range that Carlos Lee ended up receiving.
The Mariners should be extremely happy to have Adrian Beltre already under contract for the next two years at the relative pittance of just $24 million dollars. He’s a terrific player, one of the best third baseman in baseball, and despite what the national media may tell you, he’s underpaid relative to his market value.
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100 Responses to “The Value of Adrian Beltre”
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My gut feeling is that batting Ichiro anywhere other than leadoff diminishes the value of his infield hits by increasing the likelihood of a fielder’s choice. For what it’s worth, his career average with a man on first is only .314 in 728 plate appearances (his overall career batting average is .333), and his slugging drops even more (.405, from .443).
I’m a huge Beltre fan, for both performance and theater. Beltre also practices what veterans should do: helps other players. When Felix was having meltdowns, he would go out to the mound along with Kenji. He’s helped Betancourt and Lopez adjust to the majors and help them with their woes. I suspect he may ultimately be the answer to Lopez figuring out what he needs to do to succeed in Seattle.
50 – Thanks. Someone told me he was at 0 this year, so I guess that was just flat out wrong.
Well, he’s had two-and-a-half years to teach Lopez the ropes and the guy’s regressed significantly, so I’m not getting my hopes up on Beltre being the solution there. But if you want to ascribe leadership and chemistry value to him, that dugout tiff with Ryan Franklin a couple years ago has to be worth something.
My feeling is that eyeballs are a catergorical scale, the current defensive metrics are ordinal scales, and the current offensive metrics are interval scales.
More or less.
54 – I’d put leadership and chemistry in different baskets. Leadership is a skill, which from what I hear, is something Beltre is practicing. Chemistry is the catch-all for what can’t be explained. I’d put his and Yuni’s smiles in that category, which are quite pleasant, but the club could live without.
You may be right about Lopez, but I’m willing to give him a pass this summer. The reason I’m hoping Beltre can do something there is that, as a player himself, he may be able to kick Lopez in the ass, and tell him his time is running out. That’s often more effective than the same message coming from the coaching staff.
Do you see anything in his approach at the plate that indicates he may be progressing in his pitch recognition?
Not really – he still takes some ridiculously terrible swings at pitches that he has no prayer of hitting. He is what he is – a guy who can crush a pitch over the heart of the plate, gets himself out more often than he should, but has enough power and bat control to overcome a poor approach to hitting.
Isn’t the park moot here? You can’t find a LH hitting 3B. I guess you could find one who’s less pull-happy, but I doubt it would be much of a difference.
Well, if you give Beltre another long term deal, you’re then committing Triunfel to a position besides third base. I don’t think he can stick up the middle, so now you’re looking at a corner outfield spot, in all likelyhood. So there’s an opportunity cost to acquire a LH bat, even if he doesn’t play 3B, that signing Beltre through 2014 could bring.
I lump leadership with chemistry because neither of them is measurable and it’s entirely speculation on our part. If you want to talk about it as a skill, well leadership is an individual skill and chemistry is a group skill. But we still can’t trace their effects analytically to any real degree. Actually proving anything about these factors without relying on personal testimony is like trying to observe a quantum particle with the naked eye.
58 – I’d agree with you that you can’t measure it in terms of winning baseball games, but these guys are still human. I don’t believe in the “veteran grit” or the “he earned his spot in the line-up” or the “team wins because of chemistry” theories, but I think there can be a value in having teaching influences on the team. I also don’t think you can tell who’s most passionate about the game by who slams his helmet to the ground. The desire to win can be seen in a lot of different ways, and helping your teammates is one of them.
In any case, in case I didn’t make it clear, I think these are extras from Beltre, not what we’re paying him for.
Belte’s fielding seems quite good visually, and it’s cool that UZR confirms that. But what’s the deal with his RZR from The Hardball Times? It’s based on BIS data (did UZR use STATS, or am I thinking of PMR?), so it’s another PBP metric. It’s not at all akin to FRAA or RF.
So why is Beltre far below Lowell this year, and below league average? I know, I know: you need many years of data, blah blah blah. The point here isn’t so much to argue that Beltre sucks, it’s: how can these two metrics that are fundamentally doing the same thing come up with such different answers? THT just did a study examining the difference between the PBP data from STATS and BIS, and there *were* some large discrepancies, but these were mostly confined to the outfield.
So, why, according to RZR, would Beltre be a *worse* fielding 3B than Figgins, adjusted for chances? Maybe it’s positioning; Beltre has a ton of out-of-zone plays, but a poor rating in his own zone. Do the M’s shift for LH hitters more than other teams?
I understand the value in looking ahead to next season, and that the odds of this team making the playoffs this season are statistically diminished, but “it ain’t over.”
Sweeping the A’s and Devil Rays at home this week can happen, especially coming off an offensive break-out yesterday in Detroit. With two more games left to play than the Yankees, all the Mariners need to do is make up 4 games in 19, and they’re in a position to take the last two to tie and force a one-game playoff.
It’s easy to vent in the form of giving up on this year’s team and to analyze and strategize for next season, but you *never* know what could happen. All that stands in front of the wild-card are the Yankees and Tigers, and both are teams that have been playing very average baseball recently. This homestand will be a fun one!
Sorry, that was an insane number of acronyms in 60.
Triunfel? Well, let’s not give the 3B job to him just yet. Even if he becomes fit for everyday play at the mlb level for 2010, we could still trade Beltre then.
rememeber…in 2010,Beltre will be the “proven vet” and Truinfel the untried rookie…And if we’re unlucky, that’ll still mean something to the idiots in the front office….
Hopefully, we will get a new FO, or at least a new GM.
A new GM without a new FO would probably not be very useful.
I was wondering about the UZR/RZR discrepancies myself. For example, according to UZR, Ryan Braun was a +19 defensive third baseman at the break. RZR, however, has him last in all of baseball by a comfortable margin, with the fewest Out Of Zone plays as well for good measure. That confuses me.
Wait wait wait…..Ryan Freakin’ Braun was +19 in a DEFENSIVE measure? Uh, how do we explain that one? I mean, he’s pretty transparently terrible in the field. That’s….that’s odd.
Yeah, I saw his RZR was well under *.600* That’s crazy bad, but that confirms the scouts’ opinion of his D.
Well, a 1 year anomoly in any fielding measure doesn’t mean much, even if it is the current best measure, UZR. That’s why you want to use 3+ year’s in a regression.
I’m just happy we have a gold glove class fielder at third base after years of Jeff Cirillo and Scott Spiezeo. Cirillo holds the National League record for most consecutive error-free games in a season. Watching him play it was easy to see why — he never got to a ball more than a few inches to his left or right. Edgar, though never considered a great fielder, had a GUN for an arm, seeming to intentionally wait a few moments to let the runner advance up the line before firing him out.
The descripencies are probably between the use of Stats data for UZR and BIS for RZR, that and (AFAIK) UZR uses some different parameters than RZR.
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/comparing-the-fielding-stats-from-stats-and-bis/
61 – I know with the kind of season the Mariners had this season, its not easy to accept that its over, but, its over. M’s aren’t going to sweep both the A’s and the Devil Rays. Maybe the Devil Rays but with a 4 game series the D-rays are bound to win one. And the A’s aren’t that easy either. Even if they did sweep the A’s and D-rays, they still have to plays the Angels in Anaheim for a 4 game series (which they will be swept or go 1-3, 2-2 if they are lucky). But yea, its over. Start focusing on next year.
I just want to say this post rocks. I’ve been saying all year I think he’s the best 3rd baseman in baseball (sorry A-Rod but we actually DO look at defense too.) WHOO HOO BELTRE!
This post isn’t claiming that Beltre is better than A-Rod, which would be, you know, insane.
A half season of UZR data (or RZR data) is really way too small to inform in any real reliable sense.
Braun wasn’t listed as +19 through the ASB but rather was +3 in 51 chances. If extrapolated to 150 games, he would’ve been +19 based upon the data reported but really this is where you have to recognize the limitations in sample size.
M’s aren’t going to sweep both the A’s and the Devil Rays. Maybe the Devil Rays but with a 4 game series the D-rays are bound to win one.
Especially with Scott Kazmir taking the hill in one of those games…
My only issue with AB is the lack of days off he received. I think he needed a few more breaks than he got this year. Hopefully he will get more in the future and stay fresh throughout the season.
He plays hard all the time and deserves a break once in a while.
I am glad for his sake that the Kingdome turf is in the rear view mirror. He would have been punished.
Not really – he still takes some ridiculously terrible swings at pitches that he has no prayer of hitting. He is what he is – a guy who can crush a pitch over the heart of the plate, gets himself out more often than he should, but has enough power and bat control to overcome a poor approach to hitting.
When you said this, it reminded me of Torii Hunter. Sure enough, if you take a look at their career lines adjusted to a neutral context (with bb-ref’s park factors), you get:
.264/.316/.458 — Hunter
.273/.328/.461 — Beltre
Not a flawless comparison, but they are similar. At this point, Beltre’s probably surpassed Hunter in defensive value, too.
The descripencies are probably between the use of Stats data for UZR and BIS for RZR, that and (AFAIK) UZR uses some different parameters than RZR.
That shouldn’t make the difference between awful and great, unless you think that one (or both) of the companies is systematically scoring balls hit near Braun incorrectly.
Braun wasn’t listed as +19 through the ASB but rather was +3 in 51 chances. If extrapolated to 150 games, he would’ve been +19 based upon the data reported but really this is where you have to recognize the limitations in sample size.
Also, I think that UZR is a little more prone to sample size fluctuation than RZR, even though it is probably a better judge of value in the long run.
Because UZR assigns different credit to different plays (saving a sharply hit smash down the line is worth more than an easy ground ball straight at you), a couple of fluke plays can have a larger effect on UZR than RZR, even though it is ultimately correct–in some sense anyway–to give the fielder varying credit for different plays.
People always jump to conclusions too quick. Beltre gets off to a slow start and has a mediocre first year, two years later he’s still trying to defend himself. Beltre’s a high level player who deserves a lot more respect than he gets.
Oh and my one question, does anybody think that batting Beltre who has very good power, but only average onbase skills second makes any sense? Yeah he’s pretty fast, but is there another reason to put him up there?
Not to mention that Beltre’s look at Yuni/Jose in that double play twins commercial is worth like $5M by itself.
Thanks for the pat-on-the-back for Beltre, Dave. The numbers you lay out for him are convincing — but something the numbers can never quite convey is how asthetically pleasing his performances are. On his good days, he plays 3rd base like Nureyev danced. It’s a treat to watch such a talented player.
Dave,
I agree with the gist of your post, but when comparing the offense of these guys, you need to look at more just the 2007 numbers. I did a really rough OPS+ projection, giving weights of 10, 5, 3 to the previous three years. This is how the five shake out:
Ramirez: 130
Lee: 120
Soriano: 119
Beltre: 113
Wells: 101
So, Beltre is not really “indistinguishable” from the top three, but rather a fair amount below them.
Of course, Beltre probably makes up some of that (or maybe all of it, or maybe none: who really knows?) on defense.
I do agree that Beltre is underrated in any case.
gwangung -Triunfel had 0HRs in 96 ABs. I don’t see him replacing Beltre at all. 3B is normally a power hitter’s position.
Triunfel has 3b written all over him IMHO….
Triunfel’s also 17. At that age, I don’t think you can project his power potential based on his performance.
Alex Rios, who had 15 HR pre-ASB last year and was this year’s HR derby runner up (yes, I know, it doesn’t mean much but it indicates that he’s considered a power hitter now), had 1 HR in 426 ABs in 2004, as a 23-year-old.
Generally, you develop more power going from 17 to 20. And you’ll develop a lot MORE power going from 21 to 27.
I suggest you’re not taking his age into account.
Well, you would have to think that’s the exception rather than the rule. Actually, I was mistaken, Triunfel has OHRs in 371ABs, which one could argue is worse than 1HR in 426ABs. 206 of Truifel’s AB was in High Desert no less.
Another difference is that Truifel is listed as 5’11”, 175 lbs and Rios is 6’5″, 194lbs.
Well, no…that’s what YOU’RE thinking.
But you’ve yet to present any evidence. You keep ignoring that Truinfel is facing pitchers substantially older and more experienced than he is.
Ah, yes and your phantom evidence is…??
I see Tim gave me one sample – I’ll match that. Beltre at age 17, 26HRs 472ABs
And what kind of competition was that against?
You keep ignoring context. Stop that.
Actually minor league numbers are good and all but it doesn’t mean anything until a player proves it on the major league level-especially in the clutch.
Against the same type of competition or better that Triunfel spent half his year at.
17 is entirely too early to judge Triunfel’s power potential. In Hi-A ball he put together a .689 OPS. Not bad considering most of his competition are 20-21 year olds and college players. He’s at least 2 years away from really passing ANY kind of judgement on. Beltre is set at 3B for the next two years. They’ve got bigger problems at other positions. And yes, 3B is normally a power spot, but if you make it up elsewhere, who cares? My concern is the M’s are starting to look like a team that’ll hardly hit any homers in 2 or 3 years.
Anyone else for counter evidence, other than a “not bad” OPS?
For someone who harps on the paucity of evidence, you’re offering very little evidence yourself. Basically, you’ve cited a sample size of 2 right now.
Granted that Beltre put up monster numbers at a minor leaguer. What’s the general career arc of a minor leaguer who debuts so young?
You’re the one who claims that this year shows Truinfel isn’t much of a power hitter. You need to support it, and you haven’t done so. Citing one other example is far from convincing–it looks like you do only enough work to support the immediate point.
Be more comprehensive and you’ll be more convincing.
Are you seriously suggesting that your evaluation of Triunfel is the definitive one? There is a little more to player development and evaluation than looking up 400+ AB by a 17 year old on BBR.com……..
gwangung – so no other counter evidence than he’s young.