Preparing for the Inevitable with Carlos Beltran

The day that Carlos Beltran inked his deal with the Mets back in the winter of 2005 was a great day.

I remember anxiously donning a Mets hat and wandering the streets of St. Augustine, Florida that day wearing a smile. There hadn’t been much to be proud of as a Mets fan displaced in Florida over the past few years, but the arrivals of Pedro and Carlos changed all that.

As is generally the case in these instances, when your team flips the switch from irrelevant to relevant, you start to see fellow fans come out of the woodwork. That goes especially when you’re out of market and even more-so on a college campus.

I beamed and high-fived strangers for weeks after Beltran signed. I was so pumped for opening day that I skipped class and was rewarded with a Beltran bomb in the third inning.

Of course we all know the story of that day. Braden Looper gives up back-to-back homers to Adam Dunn and Joe bleeping Randa in the ninth and Pedro misses out on his first win.

That 2005 season started horrifically with five straight losses, that is, until Pedro and Carlos bailed us out in Game 6. Another homer, a Pedro gem and Put It In The Books! I remember wondering that night if Beltran would only homer during Pedro’s starts.

But boy did those investments look great on that Sunday afternoon in Atlanta. Some would say they haven’t looked as great since. Don’t count me among them. I’ll always value what Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran did for the Mets. That’s what makes what’s coming that much more difficult.

Whether it’s in the next 24 days or in the beginning of October, it’s pretty clear that Carlos Beltran will be donning blue and orange for the final time in the very near future. I’ll admit, Beltran has never been my favorite player on the Mets, but that’s not a discredit to him by any means. He’s always taken a back seat to Reyes and Wright for me, mostly because I’m a sucker for homegrown talent. Blame Roberto Alomar.

I bought Robbie’s jersey the day he became a Met and it remains one of the worst purchases of my life. Robbie Alomar, now there’s a former Met deserving of all of your vitriol.

The criticism that Alomar got in his two years as a Met was warranted. Here’s a hall-of-fame player, a guy that came to New York having gone to 12 straight All-Star games, and suddenly he was awful. His average dropped 70 points in his first year as a Met. His OPS over 222 games as a Met was barely over .700. Incredible.

Along comes Beltran a few years later and, admittedly, he puts up mediocre numbers in year one. .266/.330/.414 wasn’t what anyone expected when Carlos got a seven-year, $119 million deal. He got the Alomar treatment from the middle of that 2005 season on.

But Carlos more than made up for it in year two. Career highs in slugging and OPS. 41 bombs. 116 RBI. Fourth in the MVP voting and his first career gold glove. What more could you ask for?

For a lot of Mets fans, it all comes down to one plate appearance. One filthy curveball that altered Carlos Beltran’s place in Mets lore. Adam Wainwright did Carlos dirty that night.

Nevermind that Beltran put up an obscene 1.054 OPS in that series with the Cardinals. Forget that Beltran is the reason the Mets won Games 1 & 4 of that series. It’s all irrelevant now. The strikeout from Wainwright, Beltran’s knees buckling and all, is a vivid image etched in the mind of every Mets fan.

Carlos would go on to post two more great years in 2007 and 2008, but many fans could never forget that image and he became one of the scapegoats of the dual collapses. Problem with that logic is, history shows it should have never been the case. And There’s Proof!

Did you know that over Aug-Oct. of 2007 and Aug-Oct. of 2008, in a total of 102 games, Carlos Beltran posted an amazing .313/.389/.600 triple slash? A .989 OPS combined over the final 48 games of 2007 and 54 games of 2008. That amounts to less than two thirds of a season with every single game meaning something and he had 110 hits, 26 homers and 90 RBI. Two remarkable finishes for Beltran, two incredible letdowns for the fanbase. How you gonna #BlameBeltran?

Of course then Carlos had to go and get hurt in 2009. Then again in 2010. 12 years in the league. It happens. But short-term memory kicked in the man’s legacy in Flushing was effectively flushed.

In 2011, Beltran has returned to form. Push his numbers out over a full year and they nearly mirror his totals during 2007 and 2008. A look at his numbers in 6.5 years as a Met and he’s surpassed virtually every single one that he posted in 6.5 years in Kansas City.  You can’t say that, during his time in New York, Carlos Beltran hasn’t been Carlos Beltran. The numbers don’t back that up.

Add that in with the fact that Beltran’s acceptance of a deal with the struggling Mets in 2005 made the team relevant (combined with Pedro he turned Queens into a free agent destination) and I believe the man has been worth every penny of the $119 million he has received, Fred Wilpon’s opinion be damned. Bottom line, Carlos Beltran leaves behind him a positive stamp on this franchise.

So that’s why the last days of the Beltran era are going to be bittersweet. I might even shed a few tears when he bids Citi adieu for the final time. He’s meant that much to the team. The man didn’t bring New York a ring, but I can’t fault him for that. Baseball is a team game and Beltran has put his tail on the line here for seven years, there’s not much more I could ask of him. I’m so glad he got to represent the Mets one more time this week in the All-Star Game. He more than deserves it.

That also makes this the perfect time to say this now, while I still have a chance: Thank You Carlos Beltran. It’s been a hell of a ride.

For more of Devon's post, check out The Daily Stache.