Adrian Beltre's life is amusingly cyclical

1998-2000

Beltre joins the Dodgers as an extremely promising player who had demolished the minor leagues.  After a slow start, he begins to live up to his potential as a future star over the 1999 and 2000 seasons.  I just found this out while looking him up, but there was a brief foreshadowing to his future almost before his career in the Majors even began.

(In reference to the 1998-99 offseason) Adrian almost became a Seattle Mariner that off-season, as the key man in a deal that would have sent Randy Johnson to the Dodgers. Seattle ownership nixed the deal before it ever got off the ground, however.  An excerpt from an online biography

2001-2003

An emergency appendectomy is botched, requiring a second surgery to fix, and impairs Beltre’s 2001 season.  His development in 2002 & 2003 is disguised by bad luck: a .273 BABiP in ’02 and a terrible .253 ( that would have been an even worse .243 if not for a .325 mark in September).

2004

The season starts out with a change in ownership and a change in GM (Paul DePodesta, who is rumored to have been hired to cut salary while presenting a successful on-field product).  Adrian Beltre discovers shortly before the season that he has bone spurs in his ankle, and the Dodgers are generally picked to finish last.  Beltre goes crazy.

2005-2006

Beltre signs with the Mariners as an extremely promising player who demolished the NL the previous year.  After a slow start, he begins to demonstrate his value in Seattle.

2007-2008

Adrian starts 2007 off well, batting .280/.324/.492 through May 31st, his best start since 2004 when he batted .314/.338/.555 through May, when he dives for a ball in Texas, unknowingly tearing a ligament in his thumb.  He plays through the season, having, easily, the worst June of his career, but finishes with a respectable, though not awe inspiring, batting line.  An injury that was originally believed to be a strained shoulder muscle in September, turns out to be bone spurs, and Adrian discovers that his thumb will require surgery shortly before the 2008 season.  He plays through the discomfort and bad luck to put up numbers slightly less than his 2007 numbers.  The Mariners hire a new GM and expect to pare down payroll.

To review, Adrian Beltre’s career:

Dodgers;

Promise, moderate success, mistreated injury, bad luck, bone spurs, new sabermetric inclined GM reducing payroll, wild success

Mariners;

Promise, moderate success, mistreated injury, bone spurs, bad luck, new sabermetric inclined GM reducing payroll….

So, the point of this was to point out that Adrian Beltre’s 2004 wasn’t a crazy fluke, but instead was simply a career year with moderate good luck.  I base this idea mostly on his 2007 and how awesome it should have been.  Below are 3 sets of statistics indicating what might have been

2007-No June

PA       AB       H         2B        3B        HR       SF        BB       IBB      SO       HBP     ROE     SB        CS        BABiP

573      532      152      37        2          25        4          35        2          96        1          5          13        2          .306

.286/.326/.504/.830       wOBA: .357* – 12.48 BRAA

2007-2 Mays

690      643      186      49        2          31        4          41        2          112      1          6          17        2          .308

.289/.329/.516/.845       wOBA: .364* – 19.08 BRAA

2007-2 Julys

691      634      184      48        2          31        5          49        4          117      2          6          15        2          .313

.290/.337/.519/.856       wOBA: .368* – 21.36 BRAA

(*I’m counting stolen bases in my wOBA)

1.3625 Park Factor (assumed based on 2007 BRAA to Batting Win Value ratio at FanGraphs, which I’m sure isn’t the way to do it) gives him an offensive value of 29.1, still much lower than the 55 he put up in ’04, but a lot better than any of his other seasons.  And of course, those numbers still reflect his play with an injured thumb and later; bone spurs, if he was healthy the entire season, who knows.  Obviously, his 2008 speaks for itself in terms of shit luck and what ifs.

Bendix & Dutton’s xBABiP (there’s a link at the bottom for xBABiPs going back to 2005) demonstrates how typically unlucky Beltre has been the last few years as well.  I realize that I’m preaching (mostly) to the choir here, but I think even Lookout Landing fans tend to underestimate just how Awesome King Awesome is.  I see him as easily being capable of a .300/.360/.540 line next when the stars align in his (of course) free agent year.  Even more than seeing him (possibly) leaving (I still hold out hope for a contract extension now, while the economy looks doubtful-c’mon Scott), I despair at the thought that 8 months from now, pundits will once again declare that he’s a walk-year performer about to receive an unjust contract that he hasn’t earned.

No, I’m not Red.