Why everyone should love Adrian Beltre

[nate]

This is a good article.  Still think the biggest turning point in recent Angels baseball is when Arte refused to work with Boras and decided to get Vernon Wells instead...

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-everyone-should-love-adrian-beltre/

[NachoPop]

I always love watching players that look like they are just having fun out there. Don't get me wrong, I always liked seeing Weaver getting all intense and angry as well, but watching guy like Beltre just bring a smile to my face

[m0nkey]

 

[Troll Daddy]

[IEAngelsfan]

Beltre would have been having a ball playing for us.

[Stradling]

25 minutes ago, m0nkey said:

 

That is as much of a reason to love the dude as there is.  I try not to love dudes that go on the DL with testicular contusions.  

[nando714]

Don't tell Doug Gottlieb 

[OregonLAA]

Him moving that batters box was amazing. I was very against signing him. Watching him struggle with the Mariners  after a career contract year I was hesitant he was capable of all of this. After watching how he is with teammates and the little bit of fire he has I think he could have been one of my all time favorites

[ten ocho recon scout]

2 hours ago, nate said:

This is a good article.  Still think the biggest turning point in recent Angels baseball is when Arte refused to work with Boras and decided to get Vernon Wells instead...

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-everyone-should-love-adrian-beltre/

Yep. One of the biggest mistakes we ever made.

To be fair im not sure we would have gotten texas or boston beltre. But he would have been at worst a calhoun bat, and solidified a position weve struggled to fill for the better part of the last decade.

[disarcina]

never understood why the Dodgers didn't lock him up back when he was with them and had that 45 HR season.

signed with Seattle for a huge contract and his start there (I think he finally got to .200 BA at the All Star Break) made the Dodgers look real smart.

Another Seattle F/A bust -- one of many.

Left there for where? Boston -- and now he's on the back side of 3,000 hits with 500 HR in sight and I think he has something like 300 SBs -- with those numbers he is in elite company in MLB history......oh, he's got a great glove at 3B as well........WOW !

[disarcina]

Beltre has 120 stolen bases in his career -- I thought he had more than that - not likely to get close to even 150 as he has averaged exactly one SB a year for the past decade.....oh well.

and with the Dodgers he had 48 HRs.......and he had better stats than I realized in his 4 years in Seattle -- but his awful start there seems to over-shadow that.

sort of like Pujols with the Halos -- he got off to that real slow start that first half season with the Halos -- and ever since, folks thought 'Pujols hasn't done much in Anaheim" when in reality his average season stats have been pretty good -- not like the St. Louis years - but pretty good nonetheless --- of course, right now he's on the backside of that very long term contract and his ABs and stats are reflecting  that these days........

[ten ocho recon scout]

I think part of it, disar, was as big of a deal 48 home runs is...it was the juice era. You could literally buy a 35 home run guy for kind of cheap back then.

Beltre at 25 or whatever he was hitting 48 and hitting FA today is a different story. But back then juiced up power guys (and pitchers) were hitting FA every year.

[Docwaukee]

he still gave seattle 21.2 WAR over 5 seasons.  That's about 3 mil per WAR.  Damn good value actually.  

While it would have been great to have him, we didn't want to guarantee a 5th year for a guy entering his age 32 yo season that would have taken him through age 36.  On top of that, the contract from Texas included a vesting option that actually vested for another 16 mil.  

So we didn't make a 75 million dollar commitment to a guy on the wrong side of thirty.  Something every here has been adamant about for the last few years.  

I would like a show of hands from those who thought that he'd put up 31.5 WAR during the first 5 years of that deal?  That's an average of 6 WAR per year to a guy who was considered to be a bit of a disappointment in Seattle and then had a great contract year in Boston.  The same guy who also previously had his best season in his walk year with the dogs.  

What was a safer bet?  A 10 year investment in a guy who's career through age 31 was that of an inner circle HOFer with a career ops+ of 170 (ops of 1.037 and a career .328 avg)?  Or a 5 year commitment plus a vesting option in a guy with a career ops+ of 108 (.791 ops with a .275 avg and gold glove defense) coming off an excellent walk year season?

It's a trick question because neither is likely a good investment.   

[Vegas Halo Fan]

6 hours ago, Curse of the Wonderdog said:

Beltre is older than Pujols, and can still out hit and run circles around the fatty. Ugh.

Worse, the Pujols deal, and perhaps the Hamilton deal, probably wouldn't have been made had we signed Beltre - and who knows what his production would have been.

[ten ocho recon scout]

@doc,

To piggyback, its been mentioned here he gets a test waiver. Which may or may not have been known/in place when he hit FA. Like you said, i dont think anyone saw him doing in texas what hes done.

The seattle WAR is suprising. In regards to disar saying why didnt the dodgers lock him up, WAR wasnt really mainstream back then, and i dont think anyone valued defense as high back then as they do now.

Too bad. Forget the bat. His glove at 3rd, with aybar and later simmons would have been money.

[disarcina]

DocHalo sums up much of the thinking of signing Beltre as a free agent when he was available.......and most folks here not only would have been against signing Beltre on those terms but were and said so......it was that fifth/ sixth year option stuff that caused teams to back off........

and yes, ten ocho recon scout -- you're right -- it's easy to look back now at a guy's stats and say GEEZ he hit 48 HRs but back then the big HR guys were all over the place and you have players putting up 50 HR seasons in back to back years when it hadn't been done hardly at all before.......different time, different place these days.

Also -- not to knock Beltre at all, but does he put up the kind of numbers you see in Texas playing 81 games a year (not Coors Field) in some other ballpark?

Hard to say -- he's a lock for the HOF and well deserved. Goes in as a Texas Ranger.........

Heck, from how he has played this year, he may have 2 to 3 more seasons in him....I'm sure he won't retire until he hits HR No. 500.

3,000 hits, 500 HR and 120 SBs puts him in elite company in MLB history books.

 

[Docwaukee]

9 minutes ago, Vegas Halo Fan said:

Worse, the Pujols deal, and perhaps the Hamilton deal, probably wouldn't have been made had we signed Beltre - and who knows what his production would have been.

Don't kid yourself.  The day Albert became a free agent was marked on Arte's calendar from the day he bought the team.  Agree on Hamilton.  The one thing that wouldn't have happened was the acquisition of Vernon Wells.  The Rangers signed him on Jan 6th, 2011.  The Angels traded for Wells on Jan 21st, 2011.    But bet we still trade Napoli for something.  

[Richard]

6 hours ago, nando714 said:

Don't tell Doug Gottlieb 

That dude doubled down on his "beltre suddenly becoming good in his 30's" stance. What a Fucking idiot.

[nate]

7 hours ago, Dochalo said:

Don't kid yourself.  The day Albert became a free agent was marked on Arte's calendar from the day he bought the team.  Agree on Hamilton.  The one thing that wouldn't have happened was the acquisition of Vernon Wells.  The Rangers signed him on Jan 6th, 2011.  The Angels traded for Wells on Jan 21st, 2011.    But bet we still trade Napoli for something.  

Beltre was the first target, when they missed out on him they pivoted to Wells.  They wouldn't go the 6th year like Texas did.

[ten ocho recon scout]

Crawford was the intended target that year. We were salty about it, and it bit us in the ass. Funny enough, that was the gods gifting us a present. Then we checked on beltre and got cold feet.

I can kind of understand why, he was older, and wanted a 6th year. What i never understood was then trading for wells, who was only about 10 or so mill cheaper. (I know to us 10 mill is a lot of money, but not to a pro sports team). And we traded a power bat in naps to get him.

Even in a good wells year and normal angels nap year, the difference in offense wasnt huge. Certainly not for the money. And more importantly, it wasnt "adding" a bat as you would signing beltre (or crawford or whoever). So even in a perfect world, where wells comes to anaheim and puts up decent numbers, we were still merely adding a bit of offense (at best) for 15 mill or more so a year....but we wouldnt pay 10 mill more (overall) to beltre, to add his bat (which was similar to toronto wells) to napolis, and fix 3B.

Never understood that. Incredibly shortsighted, and dumb.

[Second Base]

Beltre is my second favorite steroid user of all time. Big Papi is just so darn lovable. A lovable cheater.

And if you're going to let Papi and Beltre in the HOF, you have to let in McGwire, Bonds and Clemens.

[Glen]

I remember not wanting the Angels to sign Beltre. Boy, I don't think I've ever been so wrong on a free agent.

[CanadianHalo]

Beltre has always been one of my favorite players. It was heartbreaking when we passed on him and even worse that he plays for Texas.

[Dtwncbad]

I vividly remember being openly mocked for projecting Beltre to be a future Hall of Famer.

[ten ocho recon scout]

6 hours ago, Dtwncbad said:

I vividly remember being openly mocked for projecting Beltre to be a future Hall of Famer.

Very well could have been by me. And i was one of the people pining for him.

I was wrong. But again, like scotty said, without being on the gear and hitting on arlington, i dont think hes even in the conversation.