I originally thought that your #BlameBeltran hashtag was just a sort of joke you were doing, and that there weren’t actual Mets fans with brains and thoughts that were under the impression the team was not winning because Carlos Beltran had ruined the team’s chemistry.
Then I went on Facebook and saw a friend of a friend of mine who watches the team on a consistent and regular basis blaming Beltran, Ollie and Castillo for ruining the team’s chemistry…
I was wondering if you had any ideas where this line of reasoning comes from? Have there been any reports that the players on the team don’t like Beltran?
– Aaron, via email.
The ellipses replace a long Facebook argument between Aaron and his friend covering all-too-familiar territory. You know the one: Jeff Francoeur plays with hunger and fire, the Mets were playing better before Beltran returned, and thus, obviously, Beltran ruined the team’s chemistry.
The friend’s argument assumes a lot, most notably: A) What happens in the clubhouse contributes to what happens on the field and does not merely reflect what has recently happened on the field. B) Carlos Beltran (as well as Ollie Perez and Luis Castillo) is a bad guy in the clubhouse.
To answer Aaron’s questions: No, I don’t think I’ve ever read anything to suggest that players on the Mets don’t like Beltran. I’ve seen columnists cite anonymous “team sources” and the like to suggest that Beltran is soft, but I can’t remember anything suggesting he is less than an ideal teammate. In fact, much has been made about the way he helped Angel Pagan this offseason.
If I had to guess, I would assume the perception that Beltran is a negative or divisive figure in the clubhouse stems from the fact that he is a Puerto Rican guy named Carlos and so has always been linked by many fans with fellow Puerto-Rican-guy-named-Carlos, Carlos Delgado.
I don’t spend nearly as much time around the team as the beat writers do and so a lot of this is speculation, but Delgado got a lot of heat in the media for being a bit outspoken and sometimes abrasive. Billy Wagner’s “f***ing shocker” outburst, I’m pretty sure, was aimed at Delgado.
And I think fans read negative items about Delgado — who, I should mention, was himself praised by many of his teammates as a great leader — and extrapolate them to Beltran. But ask the Mets’ beat writers or the guys in the SNY booth, and they’ll say nothing but good things about Beltran’s attitude and work ethic.
For whatever reason, many Mets fans don’t like Beltran, and so I think they just subconsciously assume the players on the team feel the same way. The best example of this, I think, is Castillo.
Scour the Internet for a negative report from inside the clubhouse about Castillo’s work ethic, attitude, qualities as a teammate, anything. I’m almost certain you won’t find one.
We, the fans, don’t like Luis Castillo because he absorbs a significant portion of the Mets’ payroll without showing much for it. So we guess David Wright doesn’t like Castillo either, because we like David Wright and he must feel the same way we do about the Mets’ second baseman. The Internet is rife with assumptions about Luis Castillo being a negative force in the Mets’ clubhouse only from people who have never been anywhere near the Mets’ clubhouse.
And I don’t mean to appeal to any sort of authority I might earn by being credentialed. I attend maybe half the Mets’ home games, tops, and I don’t have the type of relationships with any of the players that guys on the beat develop.
But I read a whole, whole lot about the team, and I spend a lot of time tracking how and where these rumors get started. I just don’t think there’s any strong evidence to believe that Beltran is in any way a negative presence in the clubhouse, nor that it would mean much if he were, if he were producing.
Tedquarters 
It’s amazing that the Braves have survived the loss of Francoeur.
The nature of fans is to always look to blame something. I get the sense that fans feel very uneasy if they don’t know whats going on, or why thier team isnt doing well.
What this leads to is fans pinholing and keying in on one nice neat aspect of whats going on (such as the return of Beltran) and convincing themselves that the cause and/or solution rest on one simple thing.
Flavor of the month now is Beltran and Castillo returning after the break, even though the struggles started much earlier back in Puerto Rico. I sense some of the focus in now going to the coaching staff, mainly Hojo, and obvioulsy Jerry.
I think it just comforts the fan to an extent, to have something in mind, that is simple, and can be changed, that will turn the team around. Like they can hope that Hojo will be fired, and all hope will return. Or hope Castillo is traded, and the Mets will resume scoring in the first inning each game.
Unfortunatly its just not that simple. What puzzles me though is not that fans react like this, needing to pinpoint a change, but that fact that they cant see the most obvious thing that happned right around when the Mets started sliding, and that was Reyes getting hurt in PR. Thats when the trouble started.
I know the old “as jose goes, so go the Mets” is tired and played out, but there is something to this. Mets started slow, while Jose worked his way back, Mets tore it up for like a month or two while Jose was hot, as soon as he misses time and slows down, the team goes in a freefall. Not saying its the only thing, but I just dont think it can be deniedthe role that man plays at the top.
I’ve never heard any negative comments from a real player about Beltran or Castillo.
I do remember hearing stories about how pissed Santana was when the Twins traded Luis in 07. If Luis was a bad teammate, why would a guy like Santana care?
Even when injured, you’d see pictures of Beltran popping up once a month hanging out and giving tips to teammates. I remember him working with Francoeur trying to get him out of his funk. I’ve always got the impression that Beltran is the guy to take you to the side and give advice rather than the big raw raw center of attention type guy.
It seems that everyone is forgetting the simple little fact that the middle of the order has stopped hitting all together…that’s why they’re losing, not because of anything Castillo or Beltran ha done.
#BlameBerg
Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.
Hmmm…let me think, why do Mets fans hate Beltran? Oh, right, game 7 of the 2006 NLCS. Third strike looking? There it is, now I feel the hate coming back.
I like Beltran a lot, but after all that time off, and a pretty long rehab, they needed him to come back and contribute right away. Yes, that’s pretty unfair, but they needed him and were counting on him, probably way too much. There’s no other way to say it: he’s sucked so far. And it’s fair to say that him sucking both at the plate and in the field has taken some air out of them. He’s been an almost automatic out right in the middle of the lineup, and this lineup already has enough automatic outs. It’s a small sample, and I’m sure he’ll play better, but he killed them in that Dodger series, and made a very costly mistake in the AZ series. He’s hurting them right now and he should be in RF, but that’s up to Jerry, not Carlos’ fault.
Hes still replacing Jeff Francoeur in the lineup, who was just as bad, so I just dont see the huge drop off.
It’s ludicrous to believe that Beltran has remotely ANYTHING to do with this. The choking started in Puerto Rico and continued in DC. This team was a win one – lose one team until the break. They faced good pitching and their bats have fallen asleep. The idea that Beltran is a distraction like an A-Rod is just poppy-cock. The guy isn’t liked because of the Adam Wainwright breaking ball incident (case-closed)… Castillo is in a much deeper hole with the fans because of that dropped pop-up (okay, and the money)… But he’ll never recover from that incident. Beltran can still recover. What is happening right now is a combination of bad luck, awful hitting and terrible timing. I shouldn’t have to remind anyone that this hitting was this bad at the start of the season (remember the 20 inning marathon?) In fact, Francoeur was the only guy hitting in the early part of the season. This has nothing to do with Beltran coming back, so don’t try to stir the pot. Why don’t you blame someone like HoJo. Hojo was a lousy hitter… What right does he have to be a hitting instructor?
I agree with everything you said here until you started with the “Hojo wasnt a good hitter stuff”.
That has nothing to do with being a good coach or not. Heck Dave Duncan, the guy widely considered the best picthing coach in baseball wasnt even a pitcher.
Rudy Jaramillo, a guy considered on of the best batting coaches in baseball never even made the major leagues.
Agree 10000000% about the Hojo Stuff. These specialized coached only account for a very very small portion of a players performance (Dave Duncan aside he is the one exception that holds true almost every time). Did Hojo Screw up Wright, but have magic with Beltran who was on pace to have one of his best seasons as a Pro last year before he went on the DL? Is it Hojo’s fault that Franceour is a terrible offensive player and a semi good defensive player and fans over hype him because he had 3 good months in a mets uni.
Anyone saying Jeffy should be playing should just look at the July Stats to date. Jeffy boy 18 games 51 at bats .157/.218/.196 with 2 XBH and 11K. Carlos who hasn’t played a major league game in a year 10 games 32 AB’s .167/.268/.250 with 1 XBH and 6K.
Sorry even with a struggling Beltran I’ll take his ability to actually get on base over jeffy’s smile and arm in RF any day.
Also Pagan should not get a day off the rest of the year and be batting in the #2 hole. Jerry needs to stop with the jokes.
“The Internet is rife with assumptions about Luis Castillo being a negative force in the Mets’ clubhouse only from people who have never been anywhere near the Mets’ clubhouse.”
Despite reports from everyone who has been in the Mets clubhouse that Castillo is one of the more well-liked players on the team.
But hey, fans must know more about Castillo than the people who actually interact with Castillo. How come?
Because he doesn’t smile enough…
Actually, if you look at the picture in the article, we have evidence that David Wright likes Carlos Beltran quite a bit, as did Damion Easley.
Yes, Beltran is a cancer in the clubhouse. That’s why after he went down last year, the Mets went on a tear and would have obviously won the World Series, except that he came back in September to ruin everything again.
there is so much blame to go around that 140 Twitter characters would never hold my very long hastag to cover all the names!
This is the problem with all this access and social media and the limits of Twitter. Someone with presumed access or connections can go ahead and say something in 140 characters, but then can’t extrapolate on it, so it’s hard to know if it’s sincere or sarcasm: http://twitter.com/lindacohn/status/19025115986
Ted,
Fans will always like who they like for their own reasons whether saber metrics, veiled racism or just identifying with the players background or what not. These trickle into the player’s value discussion. Guys who like Francouer have to face off with the saber people that will arrogantly point statistics proving his lack of worthwhile at other times showing highlights of Beltran making a catch in Houston a few years ago. Plus Beltran is the saber person’s wet dream as he does so many different things well.
Francouer is displaced by Beltran’s return, so why beat around the bush? This is what the real fight is about for the majority of fans as Francouer is adored by many.
Reading your site and tweets one is left with a very glaring realization how you feel.
But allow me to emphasize why Beltran is hurting this team. Carlos Beltran is basically in spring training while the New York Mets are in a pennant race. Watching his first 12 games or so there is no doubt in anyone with a functioning brain that he is not 100% while the guy who is better than him at CF is playing RF and the best (defensive) RF is riding pine while Beltran figures it out and gets his timing back.
Whether the Mets brought him back too soon, or he didn’t rehab enough I don’t know. I don’t know whether Beltran used the collective bargain rules to push his return like Ollie did. All I know is right now he’s not “Carlos Beltran” and isn’t helping the team batting cleanup either.
I blame the Mets more for that than Beltran but still he is not helping this team win. At. All. There’s no hyperbole in that statement check the stats. His contact timing is way off and in center his second gear is not working which makes him a liability in a very huge spot on the team.
As far as why Mets fans don’t like him? I can only speak for myself. I mostly don’t like him because he hasn’t lived up to his potential that was sold to us. Dude has never stolen more than 25 bases after getting 41 in 04. Sure the RBIs have been there but the HRs and BA haven’t been what was sold to us. I was expecting a .300 40/40 100 RBI guy and that’s why he was given 19mil a season. But if the Mets overpaid that’s on them, right? And I don’t sell him short or his impact on the team over the years; he’s been a amazing CF and probably the best in the game but I certainly expected a future hall of famer and was sold that by him and Boras.
But whatever. Then there are the often forgotten negotiating of said contract and how he had Boras go back to the Yankees and tell them he’d take less a la Mussina but the Yanks moved on. That to me led to the booing in 05 when tanked horribly; which he handled like a big baby, so much that he needed Julio Franco to shove him out for a curtain call in 06 reconciling him with the fan base.
And then last year not getting the microfacture surgery like Sizemore did (he still has bone bruises btw) and the surgery timing this year. Beltran has to own some of that especially given he was getting cortisone shots in December. And what’s missed is that those same bone bruises kept his rehab from being on time, not the scoping he got to clean it up- something that is overlooked and drives me batty. Had he just had the surgery last year none of this would be an issue now.
So yeah I think him a bit of a prima donna and stubborn and I don’t like him; ironically I LOVED Delgado and thought his impact was key to the Mets; and especially Beltran’s success while he played here.
But I’m just a fan I admit I’m probably offbase or wrong but it’s my right as a fan as it is yours to spam #blamebeltran like you did the other night. I’m sure Beltrans friends and family and teammates love him too and that he’s not the antichrist, but I’m not required to. It’s not a big deal. People make big deals if you aren’t in love with all 25 players on the team, it’s silly.
But you can’t write off the fact that he is hurting this team right now with hashtag sarcastic spams while occasionally taking popshots at Francouer and then try to be the voice of reason, because you are contributing to situation just as much. Everyone likes “their guy” but for me personally Beltran should be in Buffalo (dude only played in A and didn’t exactly tear it up) and not coming to this team until he is 100% mostly because of time of the season and pennant race. Or at least that’s my opinion. Perhaps the team sees that too or his reluctance to play RF and he is disrupting, who knows? Not you or I.
One thing that baffles me is that we did this very same thing bringing Reyes back too soon so you think the club would have learned something, huh? Especially in the very same season.
There is a lot here to respond to, especially in terms of Beltran’s past performance with the team and beforehand. In the three seasons before joining the Mets, Beltran totaled a 124 OPS+, which is adjusted for the park and league. Since joining the Mets, he has posted a 126 OPS+. As you point out, he has not stolen 40 bases, like he did the two seasons prior to joining the Mets. But he has hit for more power. I hate to cite Fangraphs — or anything — as gospel, but according to that site he has actually been worth slightly more than what the Mets have paid him.
That said, nothing in the post above is about Beltran’s performance, which has certainly not been good in 2010. The post was in response to Aaron’s question, which came in response to the series of tweets you mention, which came in response, to be honest, to Linda Cohn’s tweet linked in the comments section above.
The Mets have been playing poorly since before Beltran and Castillo returned. Neither has played well, but neither has anyone else on the team in that stretch. I will maintain that even on one leg, Beltran is a better bet to start hitting than Francoeur.
And that’s not meant as a potshot at Francoeur. That’s merely my understanding of baseball, based on the overwhelming amount of evidence showing that Beltran is a much, much better player.
I think fans get on Beltran and Castillo, because they don’t smile, and don’t look like they’re enjoying what they’re doing. They don’t talk much to the media, and it seems like there a cancer in the clubhouse, much like the story of Roger Maris. I think that’s why so many fans like Franceour, although he’s terrible; because he’s always smiling, and it makes people feel better. We have to realize just because they’re not smiling, doesn’t mean they’re not enjoying.
Okay, enough, the hojo stuff is getting ridiculous. You get to the major leagues, you really do not need a hitting coach at that point. Sorry, it’s true. Has any major leaguer ever said, “I’m having an off year because my hitting coach just can’t get me to lay off the slider outside and low.” Please, it’s enough already. Hojo was a well above average major league hitter with solid plate discipline for much of it. He can’t get in the box and hold these guys hands. To the guy who said Hojo was not a good hitter, you obviously have not done your research on that. This team isn’t that good, because it has guys who’ve been impatient their whole career, like Barajas, Frenchy and others, and because they don’t pitch well out of the pen, and they don’t hit with risp, or with much power. And they also have a manager who gives away outs like free samples at a Whole Foods. It’s a combo for losing. Blaming Hojo is really absurd. A good hitting coach will change everything. Good luck with that solution, gents.
These two guys just seem to have a negative energy about them. They may not be negative clubhouse influences per se, but they seem a little quiet and morose all the time. If there’s anything such as “too professional” it may be these two guys.
I’m sure everyone has a co-worker or fellow student who is super straight-edge and just takes everything too seriously and ruins the mood whenever s/he walks into the office. The guy that doesn’t get invited to office parties. Castillo and Beltran (and Delgado, previously) may be those kind of guys.