Looking Back at Beltran.....

Jason Lane has more HRs and RBIs than Beltran. Maybe steals too. I was one of those extremely pissed, but right now, I'd be even more pissed if we were paying that much money for that little production.

 

I'm very pleased with Taveras. Now, if we can only pull the trigger on that trade for Dunn.

 

i agree..i was sooo disappointed. but now, i'm so glad beltran didn't end up taking our offer. the difference in value between beltran and taveras ain't that big!

RM95 -- CHECK YOUR EMAIL

 

Carlo$ has more power and is a better centerfielder than Willy but other than that Willy is holding his own. Who would have thought this guy would be batting close to .300 and be on pace to score 100 runs this season.

 

Are you kidding? Beltran is making over $18mil...Taravez is making under $500K.

With Beltran we DON'T have Clemens because we cannot afford him.

The domino effect of not having Beltran is the best thing this team ended up with. They had a little more financial felxability and can possibly add a player like Dunn this season.

The value is tremendous in the fact we DON'T have that Beltran.

The BIGGEST mistake was not keeping Kent. He's earning all his money.

 

you misunderstood me. i meant the value of the player. beltran, if he's better than taveras, is not $17.5 millon/year better than taveras.

i totally agree. not having that contract allows us a ton of flexibility.

sorry..my post wasn't very clear.

 

This part's not true. One of the things that Clemens indicated would influence his return, was whether we resigned Beltran or let him get away. Clemens wanted Beltran back. Fortunately for us, he resigned anyway.

 

The thing is, if Beltran had resigned in Houston - I believe he wouldn't be having so terrible a year.

But he didn't and he is.

 

Let me preface this with the fact that I really love Taveras, but we must remember a couple of things.

Beltran has been playing with a strained quadriceps muscle that is finally getting healthy, so looks for his numbers to increase accordingly. Obviously at this time Taveras is winning the stats race hands down, by the end of the year I would expect the table to shift towards Beltran or at least even out.

Also, all the "missed" signings of this past offseason are looking to be a godsend. As much as I feel that Purpura missed the boat, you'd have to say this youth infusion is great. With a resigned Beltran, we may have missed ever seeing Taveras play and he looks to be a star (in my eyes) in the making. It's also clear that Lane and Burke are going to need a full year of playing time to be able to evaluate what type of players they could be on this level.

 

His average is about where it was last year in Houston - which is about fifteen points below his career average. He's not getting on base and nearly the same rate as he used to, and when he does he's not stealing bases like he used to.

His power numbers are waaaaay down. Both from the run-in with Houston, and the rest of his career.

He wasn't a superstar, and he made a ton of money for his offseason performance - but he was a pretty good player who played good centerfield defense, got on base at a decent clip, and hit for good power from both sides of the plate. He's not doing any of that right now - and I think that if he were in Houston, he wouldn't have nearly the pressure - and he wouldn't be nearly as bad.

 

I was as furious as everyone when Beltran took off, although I am more than willing to put about 90% of the blame on Beltran and his agent, Satan McNasty, rather than Timmy and Drayton. Now though, watching Willy beat out a bunt single, scoring a game winning run, even making a regular catch in center into an adventure brings a smile to my face.

I'd also like to thank the Indians for trading him to us for what amounted to a bag of baseballs. A couple more years of improvement on Willy's part and I'll consider it a makeup for the Kenny Lofton/Eddie Taubensee deal.

 

I agree. In fact...I would not be suprised if eventually Taravez is an all-star in the future.

I wonder if he's considered a candidate for ROY with all his steals and in-field hits??

 

NYC is a career killer for some guys, Beltran is one of them. Overall, I think Beltran is the better player and would have been succesful here, but for the money he was asking, he would have still been overpaid. I do want to point out though that Taveras is fast but a poor outfielder. I didn't realize this until going to a couple of games this season and seeing it for myself. He's not very good at judging where balls will go. It seems like he gets late jumps on balls too. I swear, at least 3 times I've seen him get late jumps on pretty routine balls only to motor over there and catch the ball akwardly right at around his stomach.