Why I have hope Beltre will return to the team
We’ve talked about this a little before, but here, from an article on Mike Lowell:
Adrian Beltre, after a disappointing five-year run in Seattle, could come at a reasonable price for a team willing to chance that Beltre may yet have the thunder in his bat that he displayed with the Dodgers, for whom he hit 48 home runs in 2004.
Were you disappointed in Beltre’s five year run here? I was not. He earned his money and then some. Anyone who thinks he was paid to repeat 2004, or that his value is dependent entirely on his ability to hit, is not giving the subject enough serious contemplation. Or is ignorant. Or doesn’t care whether what they write is true.
What’s even funnier about this particular piece is that after a paragraph discussing Lowell’s UZR and whether he was affected by injury and might get better, there’s this gem:
Among free-agent third basemen, Beltre ranked first in the Fangraphs UZR/150. Figgins was fourth, Feliz 11th, and Mora 12th.
Defense is a reason that Lowell might get traded. And as long as the leaderboard is open, we can talk about other players. But defense isn’t something they’re evaluated on, and certainly doesn’t inform the larger discussion about other options. If the Red Sox swapped Lowell for Beltre, I suppose the Red Sox would lose some offense and there’d be some salary differences to work out. Team defense, hey, who knows?
This is exactly why I hold out hope that the M’s will make a better offer to Beltre than anyone else. That writer’s views represent a vast pool of belief for inattentive baseball writers, fans, and even front-office types. Beltre will not get the kind of contract offers he’d get if he was an average fielder and his value came from his offense, and probably would get better offers still if this five-year run hadn’t come on the heels of his 2004 season, setting it up as a “disappointment” contract.
The M’s though have two advantages in evaluating how much they should offer: they’ve seen Beltre every game for five years, and have seen what he contributes on both sides of the inning, as well as having a realistic view into his shortcomings on offense. And they’re smart, and should be able to value that correctly.
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I did not follow this paragraph:
It seems to be clear to everyone else, but I don’t understand what DMZ was trying to say here.
WHo cares how much AB was paid? He has above average glove, arm, solid speed, in a bad year will hit .270 ish and hits doubles and a few homers. OH yeah, the M’s have zero prospects at third, zero. If he can be had at all grab him. Otherwise it is just one more hole to fill. And if I hear one more “move Lopez to third”….never mind
Zero prospects? Really? You mean Alex Liddi and Carlos Truinfel (who will likely move to 2B or 3B) are not good enough prospects?
USSM has discussed Liddi, and Triunfel has played a grand total of 7 games at AA, and has not posted an OPS over .742 yet in the minors (FWIW, Adrian Beltre hit the majors at Triunfel’s current age, and OPS’ed .780 as a Dodger playing full time at age 20).
Neither of them should be counted on to give the M’s anything in 2010… so yeah, the M’s are kind of light in the infield, unless you keep Lopez and count on Tui as the 3B, or trade Lopez, stick Tui at 2B, and go with a Hall/Hannahan platoon (assuming a 2B/3B doesn’t come back).
Beltre is my second favorite Mariner (after Ichiro!) and I’d love to see him back, but I get the feeling that he wants to see what he can do offensively in a ballpark more suited to his skills than Safeco. I hope I’m wrong because I think a healthy Beltre and a healthy Wilson playing together would be Death to Rolling Things on the left side of the infield.
Well, I was asking for help in building out my list, figuring I had missed someone, but I feel this deserves a response for both substance and tone:
Butler, I grant you, was “productive” until he turned 39, though after the age of 36 he only played in 111 games in a season once, and his totals in that regard were usually much, much lower.
To suggest that Wilson was a force after his mid-thirties is a stretch: his numbers were already declining, then fell precipitously from the year he turned 36 onward.
Raines’ OPS stayed relatively high from the year he turned 35 onward, but he never played in more than 109 games in a season, and usually far fewer.
Damon just turned 36, but indeed he looks like another one to add to the list, though I wonder to what degree he qualifies as someone whose game is largely built on speed.
McGee remained relatively productive and durable, though he was scarcely much of a base-stealing threat from age 33 on.
And, Brock: well, duh. He was a slam dunk Hall-of-Famer, and again, no one for whom Chone Figgins is likely to be mistaken.
I thank you for bringing a few other cases to my attention as food for thought, but I don’t think it vitiates the overall point I was hoping to make regarding the dangers of overvaluing Figgins, even if other sites than fangraphs peg his WAR slightly higher (and I reiterate, there’s no particularly strong reason based on his previous career numbers to think he will come close to repeating that performance). Though it seems the majority of contributors here don’t think it’s a good idea to sign him (and more importantly, that it won’t happen), there also seems to be a persistent undercurrent of thought that he would be attractive or a better option than Beltre. Marginally, that might be true, but not for what he’s likely to get paid versus what AB will probably get in free agency.
Willie Wilson, Vince Coleman, Juan Pierre, etc are players whose game is built on speed. Once that goes there’s nothing left. Some of the other players had/have a lot more depth to their game.
Figgins might be too expensive, but maybe not. I’m guessing he’ll get 4/$42MM. At that price he becomes interesting. He’ll only be 35 in the last year of a 4 year deal and I wouldn’t expect too much decline before then.
Figgins can play 2B or LF in addition to 3B. Given the uncertainty the M’s have at those positions, it’s a big plus. He’s also not handicapped by Safeco the way that Beltre is.
Beltre is a good, solid player and I will miss him. But for the money I think the M’s have better options.
Hard to guess what Figgins might get, but I’d bet it’ll be more than that, maybe $13 to 17MM per year. I have no guess myself whether that would be higher than what the M’s would be wiling to spend on him.