My ideal situation with Carlos Beltran is that he has a good year, and the Mets negotiate a new, reasonable priced contract with him and he moves to right field in 2012. I know this might not be the perfect baseball move, that from a pure numbers standpoint it may not make sense to retain Carlos, even if he has a good year without injury. Baseball is more than a fantasy draft of the best statistical robots that put up a certain line of stats; it’s also very emotional, and I happen to like Carlos Beltran. I’d be very happy for him to finish successfully, and one day add his number to the wall of retired Mets out in left field. Beltran has been a great teammate and a great part of the New York community since he’s arrived, and I think continuing that into perpetuity would be great for both him and the Mets.So while other fans seem to be counting the days until Beltran is no longer a Met, or thinking about possible trade targets for him now or by the trading deadline, I’m hoping he somehow remains a successful Met for the rest of his career and thinking about ways that that can happen without sacrificing team success.
The biggest issue with Beltran is that he has bone bruises on his knees that don’t heal easily, and he may never fully recover from them. The brace he wears is meant to minimize the damage to his knees and those bruises, but he’s only been wearing the thing for two months worth of games so it’s hard to get a sense of how much it affects him. His bruises were better at the end of the season than they were when he started rehabbing to return, which is a good sign. The perfect, if unlikely, situation would be that his knees heal completely and that the brace becomes second nature to him and doesn’t inhibit his swing or ability to run in any way.
So if Beltran were to prove himself healthy and productive in 2011, what would be a reasonable contract for him to satisfy my emotional desire for him to remain here, and yet not inhibit the Mets from being great, and continuing to be great? His contract currently pays him 18.5 million dollars, which is definitely too much. Technically he’s only making 13 million, as 5.5 of it is deferred. Even if the compromise was the same amount in his paycheck, that’s probably also a bit high for anything but a one year deal for a player turning 35 at the start of the 2012 season. Something more along the lines of three years at 27 million seems to be what he might be worth going forward. The Mets could lace it with all sorts of incentives for games played and awards received. If three seems too much, maybe two plus a vesting option based on games played, and therefore health, for the third year.
I have no idea if that’s something Carlos Beltran, or his agent Scott Boras, would accept. I have no idea what, if anything, Carlos could do to make the Mets consider keeping him. Based on his work in the community, and his comments about staying a New York Met, I do believe Carlos wants to be here, but often money talks. This is all predicated on Beltran having a good 2011 season and looking like he can continue to produce for multiple years anyway, but based on how he was doing in September last year I believe that he can definitely contribute if he can manage the situation with his knees.