Wow it has been awhile since we seen a center fielder. I would think they were under rated but have four in the top 11. I probably have DiMaggio underrated, but that is because of playing time. I also have 90 center fielders in the top 1,000 which is a close fourth among the position players. So, I feel I haven’t underrated them.
The first question that came to mind on Carlos Beltran is how the Houston Astro sign stealing scandal will affect Beltran’s election to the hall of fame. I don’t think much. After all Beltran didn’t have a good year with the bat so he wasn’t benefiting from it much. There is no proof or rumors he was involved with something like this earlier in his career. As a fairly new guy on the team I don’t think he will be case as the ring leader. I think a coach or manager played a big part of this, but we might never know or trust how much. I would still vote for him.
The other question is who was a better post season hitter, Beltran or David Ortiz. Well Beltran had a higher batting average, on base average and slugging percentage. However, Ortiz has one and a half times the RBIs which is a key clutch statistic. Well now Baseball Reference has figured out WPA for all the playoff games for the two players and Champion WPA. Ortiz has a big edge in both. Beltran has played on only one World Series winner and it was his last year in Houston. His stats for the three series as a whole were not great. He had one RBI and zero runs in 21 plate appearances. The team carried him this time. Ortiz played on 3 World Series winners. In those three World Series Ortiz batted .455, scored 14 runs and had 14 RBIs in 14 games. He was the MVP in his last series. Beltran came up in game 7 of the 2006 NL Championship Series with 2 outs and the bases loaded. The Mets were down 2 runs. Beltran had a great series to that point scoring 8 runs in 7 games. Adam Wainwright was a rookie pitcher but a good one since he was the St. Louis closer. However, he just became the closer as Jason Isringhausen the previous closer had hip surgery in September. Unfortunately for Carlos he struck out in this his biggest career at bat. However, I still believe Beltran was great in the post season and in his career. He is an easy hall of famer in my opinion.
