Sometimes a meme comes around that I just don’t get. I was all in on those LOLCats – heck, I’m pretty sure I started them – but I can’t get into the Talk Like a Pirate Day, for one. It’s a joke that I don’t get, and I’m pretty sure I don’t care to.
The Giants-related meme I don’t get is that Adrian Beltre would be a good idea. I know the science behind the idea; Beltre’s road splits away from Seattle are very impressive, and his defense is stellar. All things being equal, he’d be a nice player to take a chance on. But here’s what scares me…
Fair? Maybe not. But when I see a player have a down year right after he turns 30 – with a higher BABIP than normal, mind you – my instinct isn’t to take a gamble on that player, especially if it forces Pablo Sandoval to first, and costs about $40M or so, and requires the Giants to cough up their first-round pick. (My bad. I thought he was a Type-A free agent.)
If Beltre were guaranteed to repeat his 2008, I’d be in favor of a deal. But a large part of his value comes from his defense, which isn’t always a good bet to be consistent:
Image is property of McCovey Chronicles, all rights reserved. Just ignore that the URL has "oldjacket" in it, because I totally didn’t steal this from the comments section
If Beltre moves from "otherworldly" to "damn fine" with the glove, and his bat doesn’t rebound back to the 25+ homer guy who was consistently hurt by Safeco, he wouldn’t be worth $8M to $10M a year. No, no. In fact, as long as I’m playing the picture is worth a 1,000 words game, here’s what that description would remind me of:
Just when you think you’re out, they pull you back in. Maybe I’m just scarred by the recent history of the position.
I know Beltre was hurt last year with some sort of awful testicle laceration or something, so maybe I’m being too hard on his performance last season. He’s been a good player. It’s just that I’d be nervous enough about him in 2010, much less 2012, to make a large financial commitment.
Pass.