Earlier today, Dave Cameron of FanGraphs posted an article wherein he said that Adrian Beltre should be a serious contender for the American League’s Most Valuable Player award. While my love for Beltre is well known, reading this made me do a doubletake. I know that Beltre has been the best player on the Red Sox this season, but could he really be one of the best in the league?
In reality, Beltre doesn’t have a great case to be the AL MVP. While he has already amassed 5 WAR on the season, he’s nearly a full win behind the AL WAR leader, Josh Hamilton. Furthermore, while Beltre’s batting line of .336/.374/.567 is certainly nothing to take lightly, it’s hard to argue that his stellar defense makes up for the difference between that line and Hamilton’s .362/.409/.636 season thus far.
While Beltre doesn’t have a great case to win the award, I think Cameron is right that he should be in the discussion. Of the four players Beltre trails in WAR (Hamilton, Robinson Cano, Justin Morneau and Carl Crawford), no team has faced a more perilous road to get to where they are than Beltre’s Red Sox. With bodies dropping left and right and management content to patch the holes with players like Eric Patterson and Kevin Cash, Beltre has been a model of health and consistent play. If it wasn’t for his efforts, the Red Sox wouldn’t have even the shred of hope that they have now.
That’s not the kind of talk you hear when you hear people talk about Adrian Beltre, though. He’s almost become something of a joke on the NESN telecasts; if Don and Jerry aren’t making fun of his distaste for having his head touched, they’re shouting “Look out! Here comes Beltre!” whenever he charges after a pop-up. I don’t know why this is the case; the only thing I can think of is that the network is trying not to get fans too attached to Adrian, knowing that he’s going to be leaving us for greener pastures come the winter. Still, it seems odd to me that, in a season where so much has gone wrong, the media in Boston is largely ignoring one of the few things that has gone right.
I don’t think Adrian Beltre deserves to be the MVP, but he does deserve to be in the conversation. It’s a shame that NESN won’t start talking about him.
