Marty Noble, in a mailbag for Mets.com, says the Mets are “boxed in” with Carlos Beltran and probably could not trade him even if they wanted to because of the money he’s owed.
That’s probably true. As great as Beltran is, it’s tough to imagine a team wanting to give up much of value for a guy coming off an injury-plagued season with two years remaining on a huge contract.
Beyond that, trading Beltran, one of the very best players in the game from 2006-2008, would likely amount to selling low for the Mets.
I don’t think it’s even really worth discussing, and, since Beltran is my favorite Met to watch, I would never advocate trading the guy. But there are couple of red flags on Beltran that make me a little nervous about his next two years.
According to Bill James’ Plus/Minus, Beltran went from being one of the top center fielders in baseball in 2007 and 2008 to just slightly above average in 2009. Obviously he was injured, plus defensive stats tend to fluctuate pretty wildly anyway, but that big a dropoff can’t be a good sign.
More alarmingly, and sticking with the BillJamesOnline theme, Beltran went from being consistently one of the best baserunners in baseball (averaging a net gain of about 42 bases a year from 2002-2008) to being a -3 in 2009. That’s a pretty tremendous downfall, and not something that can be explained by a couple of failures to slide.
Naturally, both of these are speed-related problems and so, if Beltran is healthy, we should expect the numbers to head back toward his mean. But his injury was a vague one and I’m a paranoid Mets fan. I can imagine nothing worse than seeing Beltran become an injury-plagued or ineffective albatross in his last couple of seasons with the team, somehow empowering all the misguided fans who have forever felt he was overpaid and apathetic.
Of course, all that said, he did hit .325/.415/.500 in 2009. So, you know, even if he’s not quite Carlos Beltran in 2010 and 2011, smart money says he’ll still be really awesome.
Tedquarters 
Good blog Ted! I’m a NYMetsCast listener and found out about your site on the last show. I’ll check back here often to see what you’ve got to say about my Mets! I agree with you that trading Beltran or Reyes or any of the other injury problems right now would be selling low. But they all cause me to wake up in a cold sweat periodically. I agreed with your opinion on the MetsCast show that there’s no point spending big money in the free agent market. We’ve just got way too many question marks this year… it would be a waste of money. I’d rather see us place an emphasis on the farm system and begin developing prospects. I’d even like to see us make some trades to acquire prospects… become a “selling club” this year. I think we’re a good several years away right now, and I’d rather see us enter the rebuilding years now than stubbornly hang on and continue to fail with a huge payroll like the Mets of the 90’s.