According to reports, the Carlos Beltran Era is over. The man who dubbed the term “New Mets” when he was signed to a 7-year $119MM contract prior to the 2005 season has been traded to the San Francisco Giants. In return, the Mets get SF’s #1 draft pick (and 6th overall) from 2009, Zack Wheeler. The Mets will pick up $4MM of Beltrans remaining $6MM salary. Further details of the trade are still being revealed.
Sandy Alderson’s first two major trades have been good ones. First, he sent K-Rod, his vesting option, and his right hook to Milwaukee for two players-to-be-named-later. This gave the Mets some financial flexibility that should help them re-sign Jose Reyes. Now, he sends Carlos Beltran, his knees, and his lack of free agent compensation potential to the Giants for a top-level pitching prospect.
This is the kind of trade that will help both teams. The Giants get a much-needed offensive kick with the revived Beltran to help their push into the playoffs and beyond. It helps the Mets, because they wouldn’t have the money to re-sign Beltran at the end of this season, and they would get no compensatory draft picks if he left as a free agent. On top of that, Wheeler is a rising star who will immediatly bolster their farm system and help the big club in the future.
This is a move that may hurt the Mets in the short term. It will be hard to replace Beltran’s production (15 HRs, 66 RBI) in the third spot of the order. However, this opens the door for someone like Lucas Duda to play every day and at one position. Duda doesn’t seem like the kind of player who thrives in a part-time role. The Mets will still be entertaining, scrappy, and all of those other adjectives we’ve seen from them this year. But at 7.5 games back of the Wild Card, they probably were going nowhere anyway.
The biggest thing Mets fans should get out of this is how adept Sandy Alderson is at his job. He made a move that he absolutely had to make, and still got maximum value out of it.
As for Beltran, time will cause the memories of injury problems and the strikeout on a nasty curveball in a game the Mets wouldn’t have won anyway to dissipate. They will be replaced by:
- His toughness in 2005 when he came back from a head-first collision with Mike Cameron
- His career year in 2006, which included a couple of memorable walk-off homers against the Phillies and Cardinals
- His back-to-back 112 RBI seasons in 2007 and 2008
- His gutsy comeback from knee surgery in 2011
- His effortless, tremendous defense throughout his Mets career, including his clamber up Tal’s Hill in Houston
While his Mets career is over, the team’s future looks brighter than ever, thanks to Sandy Alderson.
12 comments
rustyjr
7/28/2011-3:16pm at 3:16 pm (UTC -4)
Welcome aboard Paul!
Anonymous
7/28/2011-3:28pm at 3:28 pm (UTC -4)
Welcome aboard. And agreed, Sandy’s done a nice job so far. Still waiting to see who the 2 PTBNL are from the Beer Makers.
And while he is 2/2 as you say, I think what will define Sandy is whether he goes 2/3 or 3/3 with Reyes.
MetsFan4Decades
7/28/2011-3:51pm at 3:51 pm (UTC -4)
I really hope that ’3/3 with Reyes’ is signing him…..
Anonymous
7/28/2011-3:58pm at 3:58 pm (UTC -4)
That was my meaning (and hope).
MetsFan4Decades
7/28/2011-3:51pm at 3:51 pm (UTC -4)
I really hope that ’3/3 with Reyes’ is signing him…..
Paul J. Festa
7/28/2011-3:43pm at 3:43 pm (UTC -4)
Thanks guys!
MetsFan4Decades
7/28/2011-3:50pm at 3:50 pm (UTC -4)
Welcome, Paul. Glad to see this site is still growing.
My brain is saying ‘yea, Sandy’!….but my heart is still in mourning.
Beltran will probably always remain one of my favorite Mets of all time.
If this team wasn’t once again derailed by injuries this year, if a few more players would have played up to their potential (*cough* Bay, Pelfrey), we might very well have seen Carlos here until the end and been competing for a WC spot.
Wasn’t meant to be. In that case, Alderson did exactly what he was hired to do, especially this year. Try and keep a competitive team on the field but with his eye on the future.
Here’s hoping Z. Wheeler will soon be a staple in the starting rotation for years to come.
MetsFan4Decades
7/28/2011-3:50pm at 3:50 pm (UTC -4)
Welcome, Paul. Glad to see this site is still growing.
My brain is saying ‘yea, Sandy’!….but my heart is still in mourning.
Beltran will probably always remain one of my favorite Mets of all time.
If this team wasn’t once again derailed by injuries this year, if a few more players would have played up to their potential (*cough* Bay, Pelfrey), we might very well have seen Carlos here until the end and been competing for a WC spot.
Wasn’t meant to be. In that case, Alderson did exactly what he was hired to do, especially this year. Try and keep a competitive team on the field but with his eye on the future.
Here’s hoping Z. Wheeler will soon be a staple in the starting rotation for years to come.
Mr North Jersey
7/28/2011-4:06pm at 4:06 pm (UTC -4)
Welcome to RDM Paul.
TRS86
7/28/2011-4:14pm at 4:14 pm (UTC -4)
This is an unhappy Giants fan:
Blackjohn 1 hour ago
Forgive me if you’ve already read some of my posts about this
under another article–I can’t figure out which article is active today.
As a Giants fan, I have seen a great many disastrous trades in
my life. Cepeda for Sadecki, Matty Alou (batting champ) for Joe Gibbon
(who?), Foster for Duffy (who?), Perry and Duffy for Sam McDowell …
and on to Liriano and Nathan for A.J.P., the Catcher from Hell. Well,
Giants fans, I’m afraid that when we look back on this one, we’ll add it
to the list. We just gave up our top pitching prospect for a
two-month rental, while also (maybe) causing Belt to get sent down
(losing his bat) and moving Nate out of position (losing his arm) and/or
into a platoon (losing his bat). We have (temporarily) weak-kneed old
Beltran (costing us a future star pitcher) instead of healthy young Belt
(free) to upgrade the line-up. We keep an underperforming bat at 1B and
continue to play yo-yo with Belt’s head. We traded a 21 year old for a
35 year old, so we just got older. One key young guy is gone, and the
development of two others (Belt and Nate) is put on hold, in order to
rent a guy who is the same age as Huff and Burrell. We either lose him
in the winter, or, if we sign him, we duplicate our habit of big bucks to aging vets, while compromising our ability to pay for Timmy and Matt down the road. We just sabotaged our own long-term plan–a plan that was working. Meanwhile, Phillies go after a more desirable addition than Beltran (Pence). Bottom line: Mets make off like bandits while Giants fans celebrate. What is wrong with this picture?
MetsFan4Decades
7/28/2011-4:27pm at 4:27 pm (UTC -4)
LOL
He’ll feel better if the Beltran is the cog that gets them to post season, helps them roll over the opposition and brings a repeat as WS contenders.
Anonymous
7/28/2011-6:05pm at 6:05 pm (UTC -4)
If I’m a fan of the SF Giants I look at things this way. Zack Wheeler is a prospect and could easily never be heard from again — or could become Mike Pelfrey, a major leaguer but a disappointment at the same time. He’s got control problems and lefties are feasting on him at A. He’s not dominating like Doc Gooden did at the same age. Sure, he’s got a lot of talent and is a top prospect but he’s far from a guarantee.
Also, the Giants rotation is pretty well set for the foreseeable future.
The Giants can repeat as champions and Beltran undoubtedly makes the lineup more formidable.