Uh, Beltran hit for a wRC+ of 76 while not playing the field. He was worth -1.1 fWAR. Stassi would have to fall dramatically short of his projections to be that bad.
This probably came out wrong. Intangibles have some value, but it is hard for them to overcome such a huge negative tangible value.
we never hit Yu in game seven or the previous games w/o beltran. Also secured the win in game 4 of Boston.
Certainly true in general. But Correa directly attributed his ability to hit hard fastballs to Beltran and specific exercises they did. Can't find the article offhand (it was about doing the ball machine from closer in or something like that to speed up reaction time). This is a different one where he puts a number to it for other random reasons. https://www.si.com/mlb/2017/10/19/houston-astros-carlos-beltran-carlos-correa-alcs It is chemistry, by which, among other things, a club’s culture allows it to play better than the sum of its parts. It does this while simultaneously propelling individual players to new heights and a heightened resilience. That’s the theory, anyway. Metrics-minded skeptics often contend that while it may exist, its impact on a club’s bottom line success is likely negligible. Chemistry, they say, comes only from winning—never the other way around—and not even always. While there have been champions with excellent chemistry (like the `15 Royals), and champions with bad chemistry (like the late `70s Yankees and `86 Mets), there has never seemed to have been a bad team with great chemistry. Still, Carlos Correa, the Astros’ star shortstop, can attach a number to how much his club’s chemistry improved his season over its potential baseline: seven. “I’d say of my 24 home runs this year, at least seven have been from that,” Correa says. Specifically, those seven dingers were directly the result of one new teammate: Carlos Beltran, the 40-year-old who signed with the Astros in the offseason. Intangibles work great on a team like the Astros where you're deep enough that you can just bench the tangibles.
And with a better on field player, Astros could have beaten Boston in 3, NYY in 6, and swept the Dodgers if we are going to make up stuff. For Beltran to be worth his salary last year, his intangibles would need to be worth $25 million to overcome his negative tangible value. I have a hard time buying the argument that Beltran's intangibles are worth nearly the average annual (edit) value of the MVP's extension. Give me another Altuve any day.
To the post I responded to...at this point, I do not see that Stassi is an 'upgrade' over Beltran. I certainly hope he is. But, I think my analysis of it being an 'incomplete' is accurate.
He could have gotten a coaching job I'm sure, but wanted Yankees managerial job. Probably couldn't have done better than minor league deal with camp invite as a player.
We should remember that Beltran wasn't signed primarily for his intangibles. In his previous three seasons, he brought an above-average bat to the game, posting OPS+ of 122 ,133, and 102. He might easily have been expected to post OPS+ of 110 in 2017, but instead he posted only 84. Yes, the Astros media office did a slick and effective PR job by selling him to fans as 'Grandpa Beltran' who makes up for those shortcomings with his words of wisdom to younger players, but he never would have been signed for that salary just to give advice. They might have offered him a bench coach position for that at the high end of the going rate, which he would have refused.
FWIW I'd be significantly more comfortable trading McHugh than Peacock but I still don't quite see it happening. We'll see what Luhnow does though.