Carlos Beltran returns to action in Florida, revealing not much at all
Carlos Beltran. Howard Megdal
4:33 pm Mar. 28, 2011
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla.—This weekend, the Mets unveiled centerfielder-turned-rightfielder Carlos Beltran, who played five intensely watched innings on Field 7 at Digital Domain Field after a lengthy post-knee-surgery layoff. It was not a particularly warm homecoming.
It has been a rough tenure for Carlos Beltran and the Mets. New York signed Beltran to a seven-year, $119 million contract prior to the 2005 season. Beltran performed poorly during an injury-riddled 2005, then magnificently in 2006, 2007 and 2008.
Yet to many fans, his time in New York is defined by the called strike three he took with the winning runs on base to end Game 7 of the 2006 National League Championship Series—never mind his three home runs in that series. It is also defined by the Met collapses in 2007 and 2008—never mind that his OPS was .882 in September 2007 (while playing on a pair of knees that required offseason surgery) and a Pujols-like 1.086 in September 2008.
On paper, he's the best center fielder the team has ever employed. But Beltran has accrued surprisingly little good will.
Part of this has to do with his personality. On the field, he's cool and detached. He's like that in private, too; definitely not what the beat reporters would call a "locker-room guy."
More than that, though, it's been the injury. He's suffered through complications from an arthritic knee condition that many believe will require microfracture surgery. The injury limited Beltran to 81 games in 2009 and 64 games in 2010. Last year, when he went against the wishes of the team's front office and had knee surgery in January to expedite his return, then returned to the Mets midway through the year, the team went down the tubes. There were various reasons for the swoon, but it led some fans to the harsh verdict that the Mets were better off without Beltran.
Now, in the final year of his contract, with his knee problems relegating him to the corner spot (nominally at his discretion, but maybe unavoidably) in favor of the younger, healthier Angel Pagan, Beltran has yet to prove he is healthy enough to be in the lineup when the Mets open the regular season Friday in Florida.
So there was something exactly right about Beltran conducting this experiment in a sort of outdoor laboratory environment. He'd been delayed the better part of a month by pain in his other knee (due to compensating for his arthritic left knee, and treated with a cortisone shot). Everyone in attendance quietly appraised him, rather than providing the adulation the other established Mets received on the main field, a long throw away from the minor league field where Beltran was playing.
He arrived around 12:30, and began stretching against the metal fence along the first base line. Other minor leaguers prepared for the games in groups, but Beltran did so by himself. A Mets employee walked by and said solemnly, “Good luck today, Carlos.” Beltran, unfailingly polite, said thank you, and continued stretching.
He finished his routine and walked to the first base dugout, where he sat between teammates who talked to each other but said little to him. It wasn't indifference—they'd been buzzing about the chance to play with Beltran as they arrived.
The major league Marlins had arrived to play the Mets on the main field, while on this minor league field, the players who will make up the bulk of Florida's Triple-A club filtered into the third-base dugout. Surrounding Beltran were this year's Buffalo Bisons and Binghamton Mets, the Triple-A and Double-A teams for New York.
SNY was on the scene by then, too, to capture video of the only game that would mean much to the Mets that day. The print reporters walked over from the main field as a group, taking note of the presence of both Paul DePodesta and J.P. Ricciardi, new GM Sandy Alderson's top lieutenants, on the watchtower that stands in the middle of the minor league fields.
Alderson arrived around ten minutes to one, sitting alone in a golf cart (the transport of choice at the spring complex) in an orange Mets hat, taking notes. For Alderson, the decision to keep Beltran to start the season is also a decision to keep or dump Nick Evans, a promising 25-year-old who broke into the team in 2008, but didn't do much while he was there. If Beltran stays healthy and in the lineup, there's probably no place on the roster for Evans. But with his ability to hit left-handed pitching and fill in at first base, third base, left field and right field, the out-of-options Evans would likely be claimed by another team if the Mets tried to send him to Triple-A.
Will Beltran provide enough production in his one remaining year to offset the loss of a young, cost-controlled player like Evans? No one knows. This is a far more difficult decision to make than cutting loose confirmed busts like Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez.
The game started at one o'clock sharp, putting Beltran out in sun-baked right field as the lineups were announced for the 1:10 p.m. main event on the major league field. The public address announcer, and the fan reactions, were clearly audible to Beltran as many of the players he's played with for years were cheered. Established regulars like Jose Reyes and David Wright were greeted warmly by a crowd of greater than 6,000, and their echoing adulation washed over the minor league field, which had a couple of small bleacher sections, mostly filled by reporters and Mets employees.
Beltran, it turned out, hit second in each of the first five innings—further allowances made to center the game around the 33-year-old star. Amusingly, the first base umpire didn't get the memo, calling Beltran out on a check-swing in the bottom of the first. Instead of testing his knee by running, Beltran returned to the dugout. He struck out in the second and third innings as well.
Right field offered Beltran little action, though a ball hit over his head took a while to corral, and a ball in the gap between center and right field took him far longer to cut off than it used to take him, when he was healthy. It is an open question whether that Beltran exists any longer.
Back in the dugout between at-bats, Beltran exchanged a few pleasantries with some of the other minor leaguers, but mostly chatted in Spanish with minor league pitching coach Ricky Bones, a fellow Puerto Rican and a man far closer in age to Beltran than most of the players on his team. Bones has been retired for a decade.
Beltran made contact with a pitch in the fourth inning, grounding out to third base, and in the fifth inning, grounding out to second. He didn't run particularly hard either time, ensuring that the Mets wouldn't have a whole lot to go on in making a judgment about his fitness.
After the planned five innings, Beltran signaled to his manager—former Mets second baseman and current Buffalo Bisons manager Tim Teufel—that he'd had enough. Beltran walked along the path next to the first base dugout, the beat reporters following behind him. The game continued, resuming normal rules for batting order.
After about fifteen minutes, Beltran entered the cavernous spring training clubhouse and walked to his locker to talk and undress. The reporters had passed the time watching a Phillies game on the flat screen television playing above the row of lockers that included Beltran.
Beltran repeatedly stressed that he felt nothing in his injured knee, and like the press-trained pro he is, returned to that theme throughout the interrogation.
How did he feel, generally?
“Good. Nothing in my knee, good that I was able to go out for five innings and I didn't feel anything, so I feel good about it.”
How did he feel about hitting both right-handed and left-handed?
“I feel fine. Honestly, right now, I'm not worried about hitting. The last thing I'm worried about is hitting. I'm worried about my legs, and hitting will come.”
How did he feel in right field?
“Less active than center field for sure,” Beltran said. “Everything they hit was to left field, left-center, so I didn't get the chance to move, really, but I was able to move back and forward, and feel good about it.”
Has he progressed as far as he hoped entering the spring?
“Right now, I feel pretty confident that everything is going to continue to be good. After I got the shot, I haven't felt anything, so I feel good with that.”
A few questions later, the reporters had nothing left to ask. They had learned nothing.
Beltran played another five innings on Sunday, collecting two hits and making several plays in the field. Whether he can do that for nine innings, five-to-six days a week, is anybody's guess. The Mets have approximately 96 hours to figure out whether they feel confident as well.
