December 28, 2004

Just how good will Adrian Beltre be?

I was discussing the quality of Beltre’s signing in the Primer Chat the other night with Dan Werr.  Werr is a Mariners fan, and of course, thought the signing was good.  I think otherwise.  So we made a friendly wager – the loser donating a sum to the continued operation of Baseball-Reference.  I have less than or equal to a 109 OPS+, his present career average.  Dan has any OPS+ above that.  Leaving the contract money mostly aside (5 years, $65 million - you’ll have to get Studes to help with Fair Market Value) is Beltre the hot free agent he is rumored to be? 

Werr isn’t alone in M-world loving the Beltre signing.  David Cameron considers it one of the best signings of the off-season, as he ranks them at USS Mariner.  Derek Zumsteg is equally pleased in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Let me state that most people (not the ones above) are measuring Beltre’s quality by the enormous output at the plate in 2004.  Beltre hit 48 home runs and drove in a ton of runs, while hitting .338.  All of that was done in a home park that depresses offensive numbers.

Beltre has been in the majors since he was 19, and has been touted as a great thing.  His age 20 season, he posted a 100 OPS+.  He improved on that in his age-21 season with a 116 OPS+.  Suddenly Beltre, who was anticipated as a superstar, was ready to take it to the next level.

During the off-season (January 2001), Beltre had an emergency appendectomy that was nearly fatal.  I’m not sure how much that affected his numbers, but his next season, he fell to a 93 OPS+.  He had more than 500 plate appearances, so while I am sure he was weakened, he seemed to hit okay.  His ISO was down only slightly.  What was down was his batting average and his walk rate.  It is reasonable to think that he was concerned for his job, and pressed a little at the plate.  After all, he was 22, and coming off an injury.  The next season, his age 23 season, he should have been healthy as it was 15 months since the surgery before the next season, and Beltre showed some improvement.  His BA fell, but his ISO climbed 20 points.  His walk rate was still below average.  He posted a 98 OPS+.  Then he posted an 89 OPS+.  These were his “formative years”, when predictions for his step forward were common.  He actually had improved his ISO to where it was in his age-21 season - ~0.185.

Then in 2004, Beltre went bonkers.  He raised all his numbers dramatically, posting a 163 OPS+ in his walk year.  His ISO jumped to 0.295.  His walk rate still isn’t good.  His BA went up 100 points.  He was 25 and king of the world.  Well, prince to Carlos Beltran, but Free Agency Royalty, nonetheless. 

But which is the real Beltre?  Is his true talent level the 1800 plate appearances at a 93 OPS+, or some progressive growth from a 100 to a 116 to a peak at 163 - the lofty heights of Hall of Famers?

Joe Dimino is excited at Beltre’s prospects as a future great.  He pointed out that Beltre’s 37 Win Shares is the one of the most ever by a 25-year old.  Other players that posted 34-36 WS (to prorate to a 154-game season) at the age of 25 are pretty impressive, with some 6 Hall of Famers out of 10 players. 

What that doesn’t say is that there are tons of players with almost that mark at *or before* age 25.  Joe has fallen into the trap of multiple endpoints. 

While Beltre posted 37 WS, 6 of those were defensive WS.  I have disparaged defensive WS enough, but they are not accurate in general due to the distribution of chances.  That said, 6 WS by a third baseman is a lot.  But we aren’t fooling ourselves, Beltre is about that good.  He is as good a fielder as there is at third base and he posts high defensive WS.  What that means to this discussion is that Beltre’s *bat* was only 31 WS.

Looking back at Joe’s claim, how many 25 year olds had 31 batting WS?  Someone with the WS database will have to answer that one.

Secondly, while I understand that players on good teams and bad teams should get approximately equal WS, on a weak offensive team like the Dodgers, are Beltre’s WS totals inflated, and his defensive WS deflated?  There is a set split of offense and defense in WS, and I believe it works most of the time, but the Dodgers’ defense is largely the source of their success, with extremely weak hitters in the lineup.  This first incorrectly balances the Shares to the offense that should belong to the defense, and thus the best Dodger hitter, Beltre, picks up more WS than he should offensively (and less than he should defensively).  Maybe that comes out in the wash, but if I want to compare him to others to evaluate his future potential, I need an accurate assessment of his hitting ability.  There should be little to no dispute that Beltre will provide excellent defense at third base, and his value, with respect to the $13 mil per season, may be earned overall, depending on how his offensive production dips.

Thus, I’ll move away from WS, and on to using OPS+, because I have easy access to it.  There is almost no way to satisfy everyone with the endpoint I select for comparative purposes, so I’m going to use given player’s performance up to and including his age 25 season.  Because we are talking about an offensive player’s development, I am not restricting it to third basemen either. 

Using some combination of Lee Sinins’ Sabermetric Encyclopedia and Bill James’ Win Shares book, I jotted down a few names to look up on your favorite website and mine (okay, second favorite), Baseball-Reference.

I grew up in the 1970s – those were my prime baseball card collectiing years (I have complete sets from 1973 to today of the Topps Regular Series).  Almost immediately, when people speak of a good hitting third baseman, I think of Bill Madlock.  He was not known for his glovework, but, boy, could he rake.  So I wanted to compile a little chart to see how Beltre may develop offensively.  I will also try to include seasons where the player got 300 PAs (something I consider to be a reasonable sample size for a given season – this is flexible).  I’ll also throw in what a Hall of Fame development path looks like.

In case you are confused about the positional designations, each of these players were at third base either during his 25 season, or before it.

One thing is for sure: Beltre’s development pattern is very unusual.  I can see blaming his drop in performance for the first season back, but baseball players are workout fiends.  Beltre would have worked out extra to get his strength back before the next season.  He would practice all the time, particularly if he was worried about losing his job and pressing in the previous season.  He bounced back some, but then stumbled again.

Looking at other hitters that posted similar OPS+ numbers at age 25 or younger, almost everyone I looked at followed a somewhat normal development pattern, generating a good OPS+ the season(s) leading up to the breakout year.  Even Sixto Lezcano did.  The closest I could come was Tito Francona.  Ron Santo is a pretty good comparison, but he didn’t stumble along at a 93 OPS+ for 1800 plate appearances.

Here’s what I see: There’s almost no chance that Beltre will fall to a 109 OPS+.  Even Tito didn’t.  Sixto and Harland Clift did, so there is some chance.  I am not sure what will constitute “earning” his salary, but I’m pretty confident Beltre won’t make the Hall of Fame.  The players above that made the Hall of Fame (Killebrew, Schmidt), or are even on the edge of it (Santo, Allen), outperformed Beltre at this point in the career.  While Schmidt’s early career isn’t very different, expecting Beltre to have Schmidt’s career from here on out is absurd.

Another reason to lean away from the Hall of Fame is Beltre’s tremendous lack of plate discipline.  He is similar to Juan Gonzalez (career OPS+ 131 at age 25) or Ruben Sierra (career OPS+ 118). 

All this talk about Beltre’s bat reminds me of the hype for the former “next Willie Mays”. 

Hall of Fame players are exceedingly rare.  It just isn’t that easy to be one.