What is Carlos Beltran's rookie card?

[Yastrzemski Sports]

Originally Posted by Mike D.

Baines has 38.7 career WAR in a career that spanned 22 seasons.

Beltran had 69.6 career WAR in a career that spanned 20 seasons.

Their raw offensive #'s are close-ish as someone noted, but:

- Beltran was a 3x GG winning CF. Baines was a DH/mediocre OF.

- Beltran stole 300+ bases with less than 50 CS. Baines stole 34 career bases with a 50% success rate.

- 50 more HR is nothing to sneeze at, either.

Baines is the worst HOF selection in recent memory. Beltran isn't a slam-dunk, no doubt HOFer, but I think he's deserving.

Offensively, they are almost identical as shown in their ops+ with Baines having a slight edge. I found it an interesting comparison when he was described as having “ extremely poor” stats for HOF and Beltran seems like a lock. I do give credit to Beltran for his defense. But I don’t think 3 gg ever put a player over the top for induction.

Baines had 1 top 10 finish in the MVP voting. Beltran had 2. So neither one was dominating their leagues in the era they played. I don’t think you can make an argument for or against one and not the other. You can show me WAR and black ink to “prove” that one was superior to the other but they were very similar players - offensively.

Baines has become the poster boy for bad HOF inductees. My argument is only that he’s a pretty good pick, that he had a very nice career and is getting a bad rap. Put him in and Beltran too.