Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
May 27, 2005
Which Year is the Fluke?

Adrian Beltre is off to a terrible start for the Mariners this season. Coming into today, he had a .262 OBA. So was last year the fluke or this season? If you average the .262 and .388 of last season, you get .325, which is very close to his .328 career OBA. Talk about regression to the mean!


Posted by David Pinto at 08:49 PM | Players | TrackBack (0)
Comments

I don't think what Beltre is doing this year is all that unexpected - everyone was saying that he had put it all together last year, but before that, he always disappointed in the first half and put together decent second halfs.

I expect him to have a decent second half, like he usually does.

Of course, that isn't exactly earning the contract Boras negotiated for him . . .

Posted by: Will at May 27, 2005 09:18 PM

I think getting off steroids had something to do with it, too.

Posted by: 8 Z E R O 8 at May 27, 2005 09:58 PM

Oh cmon, he looked bigger than before last year, sure, but I really feel he just finally had two good halves last year.

Posted by: Will at May 27, 2005 10:54 PM

Actually he looked smaller the two years before-- he lost 70 pounds when his appendectomy nearly killed him, and it took him awhile to gain it back. He's only a liitle bit bigger today than he was when I saw him play in San Antonio right before he came up...

He tries to uppercut everything, and the pitchers use that against him; for some reason he stopped that last year and took to just hitting the ball on the nose most of the time, and he's plenty strong enough to drive the ball out without needing to hit mortar shots. The two times I've seen him this year he was back to swinging up at the ball instead of through it...

Posted by: john swinney at May 28, 2005 02:21 AM

Adrian keeps trying to hit a home run every time up, that's the problem. I think last season was just a fluke and he's now back down to earth. He won't hit like he did last year until he stops trying to hit a grand slam every time he comes to the plate. Swinging up at the ball instead of through it is making him swing and miss at too many bad pitches.

Posted by: Jared Buck at May 28, 2005 02:24 AM

Playing at Safeco don't help much either...

Posted by: Tan The Man at May 28, 2005 02:51 AM

Hm, I'm going to go the last-year-was-a-huge-fluke route with this.

Not wishing anything personal on Beltre or anyone else, but I tend to wish these irresponsible contracts end up blowing up in these teams' face so that baseball can reign itself in with these salaries. I don't have a problem with Beltre's contract per se, but given that it came after only one great year, I think it was irresponsible. Pay the guy 10 mil, sure, but with his offensive track record I wouldn't make it for any longer than two years.

Posted by: Daniel at May 28, 2005 03:41 AM
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