Carlos "You Can Call Me Shirley" Beltran At The Bat

By Deb McIver
Posted Thursday, July 19, 2007

I guess by now we know all too well the tale of the woes of Los Dos Car-LOS, they of the 2007 New York Mets, our team, our lives, our passion.

But today, I am going to focus, in particular, on Carlos Beltran. And why, you ask? Esteemed reader, for one very simple reason – he’s been the subject of many a post here at FU over the last couple of days. I don’t know exactly how it happened, but a bunch of us on the forum were talking about cocktails we could name after certain Mets, and lo and behold, Carlos “Shirley” Beltran was born. Why? Why, because it was simply decided that the cocktail that best fit Mr. Beltran was the ever-famous Shirley Temple. Yes, THAT Shirley Temple – the one with no real alcoholic fizz and no pop! And one thing led to another, and… well, here we are, the title of this article! Later on, maybe I'll write something about Carlos "Laverne" Delgado; right now, today, July 19, I'm too pissed at him, frankly!

Let’s get down to it, though, shall we? Carlos "Shirley" Beltran has had what by any accounts could be considered a truly subpar year at the plate thus far. Now many reasons have been offered, some of which may be correct, and some of which may not, but the bottom line is, he’s not producing, at all, and he’s killing the batting order. And thus, the entire offense.

I’ll be the first to admit he’s a defensive star. He makes it looks easy, The Glider, as he’s been called; he’s just so smooth and electric out there in center field, all at the same time. And that part of his game hasn’t suffered. Which makes the seemingly ever-present mystery of why he continues to struggle with the bat even more of an enigma. It would seem to a reasonable person that Carlos couldn’t make, say, the catch he recently made in Houston, crawling up the heaven-knows-why-it-exists embankment in the outfield if he were injured, or so opined Seth Everett on the pregame show on SNY on July 17, and I happen to agree with him.

It’s just that his bat hasn’t nearly kept pace with his defense, and hasn’t for some time. And lack of aggressiveness at the plate, compounded by what seem to be lingering “injuries,” and that “just not so right” feeling that always seems to follow Carlos around like a nuclear cloud, make him a serious question mark for the rest of this year.

And it isn’t the first time. Many of you may recall that Carlos’ first year here was a bit up and down, which most people wrote off to injuries combined with the typical “adjustment year” so often required by players new to the area. Then last year – BOOM! A Carlos explosion! The guy could do no wrong! He looked happy, he looked comfortable, and for awhile there, he looked like a serious MVP candidate. That is, until September rolled around, and the post-season came and went, taking Carlos’ bat away with it…..

So what happened, you ask? Well, I wish I knew. What I’m seriously starting to think is that Carlos isn’t capable of sustaining a certain level of performance over the long run. Well, he is, just not the one we want! But if you take a closer look at Beltran’s statistics over his career, a picture begins to emerge of Carlos as a solidly average player with some power and significant defensive skills, a not-so-great on base percentage, and basically he’s performed that way for the Mets since he’s been here. Notwithstanding his explosion of power while wearing an Astros uniform in the 2004 NLCS (who could possibly forget the drama of those eight home runs!), he’s pretty much always been what he’s always been. So I guess part of the issue is that maybe, just maybe, the Mets and their fans expected the uber Beltran rather than the average Beltran, which is basically what we got – the average Beltran, that is. And what we really should have expected.

I suppose for the huge contract Carlos received from the Mets, we have a right to expect more. And a right, at least, to see some enthusiasm and some discipline and maturity at the plate. And for most of last year, that’s what we saw. We just haven’t seen much of it this year, and I’m not sure those things (at least the on-the-field enthusiasm) are really a part of Carlos’ personality. And as I said before, I think part of Carlos’ problem is that he cannot sustain a certain level of performance over the long run.

He’s a very good player, a solid defender, sure. But is he the superstar we’ve made him out to be? Shirley, you must be joking!