Adrian Beltre: Headliner for the Hall of Fame Class of 2024

Adrian Beltre is the headline act of baseball’s Hall of Fame Class of 2024, one of four men who will be inducted into the Hall this Sunday in Cooperstown, New York. Beltre, who was elected overwhelmingly by the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) in January, with 95.1% of the vote, will be joined on stage by catcher Joe Mauer, first baseman Todd Helton, and manager Jim Leyland.

Beltre, a five-time Gold Glove Award winner who finished his career with 477 home runs and 3,166 hits, was an obvious first-ballot call for the Hall. As a magnificent defensive player and a feared power hitter, Beltre played the game with a blend of intensity and joy, playing through injuries and pain more times than one can count. Just don’t try touching him on the head!

The right-handed hitting Beltre, a native of the Dominican Republic, also had an unusual career in that he was more productive in his 30s than in his 20s. For that reason, he snuck up on everyone as a Hall of Fame candidate. All of a sudden, in early 2015, he hit his 400th home run. That’s a lot for a third baseman.

Three years later, Beltre collected his 3,000th hit. Wow! All of a sudden, he became a sure-fire Hall of Famer. I bet you didn’t see that coming when he was slumping in Seattle.

Here’s a little game of “Who am I?” among MLB third basemen. Which one of these players is Adrian Beltre, and who are the other three?

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It’s hard to tell, isn’t it? Here’s a hint: the other three players are Scott Rolen (who was elected to the Hall last summer), Ron Santo, and Wade Boggs.

Got it?

Give up yet?

OK, here are the names:

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According to the Baseball Reference statistic “WAR runs above average from fielding,” Beltre is 2nd best third sacker ever to the Human Vacuum Cleaner (Brooks Robinson, who passed away last September) when it comes to defensive prowess at the hot corner. He was blessed with a strong arm and the ability to make accurate throws from multiple angles. Nobody could make the bare-handed pick and throw like Adrian.

And yet, Beltre’s five Gold Glove awards are less than the six owned by Eric Chavez, Robin Ventura, and Buddy Bell.

The good news is that, now that a plaque in Cooperstown is validating his legacy, the debate over where Beltre ranks defensively is functionally irrelevant to his Hall of Fame case. His 3,166 career hits are 12 ahead of George Brett and the most among all third sackers in baseball history.

His 477 home runs rank 3rd all-time at the position, nine ahead of Chipper Jones and behind only Mike Schmidt and Eddie Mathews.

If Adrian Beltre had been a horrible defensive player, he would still have made the Hall of Fame on the basis of his home runs, RBI, and hit totals. Of course, Beltre was a brilliant defensive player. When you combine the defensive work with the offensive numbers, it’s the easiest Hall of Fame call anyone can make.

Cooperstown Cred is a website primarily focused on the debates about whether or not a player should be inducted into the Hall of Fame. When it comes to Adrian Beltre, no debate is necessary. This piece will be a tribute to his superb career, and it will look at where he ranks among the all-time best to man the hot corner.

Cooperstown Cred: Adrian Beltre (3B)

Elected to the Hall of Fame in 2024 with 95.1% of the vote (1st year on ballot)

• Los Angeles Dodgers (1998-2004), Seattle Mariners (2005-2009), Boston Red Sox (2010), Texas Rangers (2011-19)
• Career: .286 BA, 477 HR, 1,707 RBI, 3,166 Hits
• Career: 116 OPS+, 93.5 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
• 2nd in 2004 N.L. MVP voting (.334 BA, 48 HR, 121 RBI, 163 OPS+, 9.6 WAR)
• 4-time All-Star
• 4-time Silver Slugger
• 5-time Gold Glove Award Winner
• 523 double plays turned at 3B, 2nd most ever (Brooks Robinson)
• 5,182 career assists, 3rd most ever at 3B (Robinson, Graig Nettles)

(cover photo: Associated Press/Jim Cowsert)

Adrian Beltre’s Early Years

Adrian Beltre was born on April 7, 1979, in Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic. Beltre’s father was friends with Felipe Alou, who had a 17-year MLB career and would later become the manager of the Montreal Expos and San Francisco Giants. Alou once said that he had a “soft spot” for Adrian because he “used to hold him” in his arms.

Felipe’s brother Matty Alou oversaw the cock fighting sport in the Dominican Republic, and Adrian’s father raised some of the top roosters. Despite the family connection to the Alou family, who were baseball royalty, young Adrian’s best sports as a child were tennis and basketball.

Beltre has said that the turning point that made him want to play baseball was when he was watching an Astros game. He was 12 years old at the time and was impressed with how hard Astros third baseman Ken Caminiti played at the hot corner.

Los Angeles Dodgers (1998-2004)

Adrian Beltre was signed by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1994 at the age of 15 (technically an illegal signing for which the Dodgers were later punished by MLB), and he debuted with the major league club in June of 1998, less than three months after celebrating his 19th birthday.

1998 was a tumultuous season in Dodger-land: Beltre was replacing the recently acquired Bobby Bonilla, who had been placed on the disabled list. Bonilla had been part of the mega-trade that sent favorite son Mike Piazza to the Florida Marlins (before Piazza ultimately landed with the New York Mets).

Anyway, the Dodgers alternated between Beltre and Bonilla for the balance of the season but clearly liked what they saw in the young Dominican, sending Bobby Bo packing in an off-season trade.

For the next five seasons, Beltre was a fixture at the hot corner in Los Angeles.  He was solid but certainly not spectacular. From 1998-2003, he averaged 16 home runs per season with an OPS of .748 (a figure which translates to an adjusted OPS+ of 97, which is slightly below the league average of 100). But 2004, his age 25 season, was a revelation.

In just one year, Beltre went from an average player to a superstar: he hit .334 with 48 home runs, 200 hits, and 121 RBI with an OPS+ of 163. Beltre finished 2nd to Barry Bonds in the NL MVP voting, timing his breakout year with his free agent walk year; the young superstar parlayed his spectacular campaign into a 5-year, $64 million free agent contract with the Seattle Mariners.

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Seattle Mariners (2005-2009)

For years, it appeared that Adrian Beltre’s 2004 season was a one-time fluke. Moving to spacious Safeco Field in Seattle, Beltre never even approached the 48-homer season of ’04, clubbing an average of 21 taters per each of the five years of that contract.

It’s easy to blame Safeco for his middling numbers, but his park and league-adjusted OPS+ for those five seasons was just 101, barely above average and lower than other third-sacker luminaries such as Mike Lowell, Morgan Ensberg, Garrett Atkins, and Casey Blake. Take a look at his home run and OPS splits for those five seasons, and you’ll see that Safeco hurt but doesn’t fully explain his mediocre offensive numbers during this period:

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During the Mariners’ years, although Beltre was seen as a disappointment with the bat, he was quickly gaining a well-deserved reputation as a spectacular defense player at the hot corner. He won the first of his five Gold Gloves in 2007 (although, ironically, when you look at the numbers, this was an off year with the leather, his worst in five years).

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2007 was only 16 years ago, but the coaches and managers voting on the Gold Gloves were still voting on anecdotes and reputations; advanced fielding metrics only recently permeated the Gold Glove voting process.

Using  “Defensive WAR (Wins Above Replacement)” on Baseball Reference, Beltre was the fifth-best defensive player in all of baseball during his years in Seattle.  Still, his offensive WAR ranking was 67th during what should have been his peak years (ages 26-30).  Also, if you look at his ranks in several traditional and advanced statistical categories, he sure didn’t look like a Cooperstown inductee in the making.

The chart below shows Beltre’s ranks among all MLB players and among third basemen (with a minimum of 2,000 plate appearances for rate stats).

To explain the WAR statistics to the novice sabermetrician, oWAR is “Offensive Wins Above Replacement”; dWAR is “Defensive Wins Above Replacement.”  There is a positional adjustment, so if a third baseman and first baseman have identical statistics, the oWAR will be higher for the third baseman because it’s a more important position on the defensive spectrum. The “overall” WAR is NOT arrived at by adding oWAR and dWAR because it would mean counting the positional adjustment twice.

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After the 2009 season, Beltre, at the age of 30, had yet to make an All-Star team, had won two Gold Gloves, and only had one season (the magical 2004) in which he had earned a single vote as his league’s Most Valuable Player. 2009 was the worst of those five years, an injury-plagued campaign in which he managed just 8 home runs, 44 RBI with a .683 OPS in 111 games.

Boston Red Sox (2010)

Statistically-minded Boston Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein, seeing at a minimum Adrian Beltre’s defensive value, took a gamble, signing him to a one-year, $9 million contract. In one year of playing in front of the Fenway faithful, Beltre’s emergence as one of the top players in the game began.

In that 2010 season in Beantown, Beltre made his first All-Star team, hit .321, blasted 28 home runs and a league-leading 49 doubles, with 102 RBI.  His 7.8 WAR (Wins Above Replacement) was the fourth-best among all position players in baseball.

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Texas Rangers (2011-2018)

After that terrific season, Adrian Beltre was rewarded with a six-year, $96 million free-agent contract with the Texas Rangers, the team with which he became one of the superstars in the game.

Including the renaissance season in Boston, here are Beltre’s ranks in key statistical categories from 2010-2016 (with a minimum of 3,000 plate appearances):

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The evidence is overwhelming. For seven seasons (his age 31 to 37 seasons), Beltre was one of the best hitters in baseball and easily the best third baseman overall (even as his defensive prowess started to slip).

Those seven seasons have given Beltre the accolades of four All-Star appearances, three more Gold Gloves, and three more Silver Slugger awards (for the best hitter at his position). In all seven seasons, Beltre was in the top 15 of the AL MVP voting (finishing 3rd in 2012).

Beltre was limited by injury to just 94 games in 2017 and 119 games in 2018, so it’s understandable that, at the age of 39, he decided to retire after the 2018 campaign.

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Adrian Beltre: A Hall of Famer Made in his 30’s

If you asked, after the 2009 season, any writer of the Baseball Writers Association of America, any broadcaster, or any knowledgeable fan whether they thought that Adrian Beltre would ever get into Cooperstown, you have gotten a nice big laugh.

This January, 95.1% of the writers eligible to cast a ballot for the Hall of Fame voted “yes.”

As Beltre entered this exclusive club, he will be one of the rare members who gained entry on the basis of the performance of his 30s and not his 20s, ironic for a player who debuted in the bigs at the age of 19. This fact is especially true for position players, nearly all of whom were stars in their 20s. With pitchers, there are a certain number who didn’t truly “figure it out” until their later years (think Randy Johnson, who won the first of his five Cy Youngs at the age of 31).

Take a look at the list of Hall of Fame players that you’re old enough to have seen play and look at their statistical resumes. What you’ll see almost all the time are multiple All-Star appearances and MVP or near-MVP caliber seasons early in that player’s career. The majority of players in the Hall are those who looked and felt like Hall of Fame players during the early years we enjoyed watching their exploits on the diamond.

If you look at the position players elected by the BBWAA in the last 50 years, every single one of them had at least one All-Star appearance in their 20s (Beltre didn’t make his first Mid-Summer Classic roster until he was 31).

Now, Beltre certainly deserved to make the 2004 team (during his monster season in L.A.), but almost every Hall of Fame position player elected since 1962 appeared in at least two All-Star games in their 20s.

The exceptions to this rule are Lou Brock (who made one team at the age of 28 and then five more in the rest of his career), Edgar Martinez (once at age 29 and then 6 more), and Larry Walker (once at age 25 and then four more).

Comparison to Jeff Kent

Among star players of the last 20 years, Beltre’s lack of All-Star game appearances in his 20’s is something shared by Jeff Kent. The power-hitting second baseman didn’t make his first All-Star team until he was 31 years old and was a vastly better player in his 30s than in his 20s. Kent’s 377 career home run total is greater than any 2nd baseman in history, but he maxed out at 46.5% of the vote in his ten appearances on the Hall of Fame ballot.

The point here is that, as Jeff Kent did, Adrian Beltre has snuck up on us as a Hall of Fame caliber player. The difference is that Beltre’s superb defensive metrics give him a WAR of 93.5, while Kent’s poor defensive metrics give him a 55.5 WAR. Beltre’s first year on the Hall of Fame ballot occurs twelve months after Kent’s final year on the ballot.

How Does Adrian Beltre Rank Among the Best Third Baseman of All Time?

If you are a WAR believer, Adrian Beltre is the 3rd best third baseman in the history of baseball, behind only Mike Schmidt and Eddie Matthews. Strictly by that metric, Beltre is ahead of Wade Boggs, George Brett, Chipper Jones, and Brooks Robinson. All of the named third sackers except for Mathews were first-ballot Hall of Famers.

The exception to the first ballot rule is Mathews. When you look at the numbers for the seven premier third basemen, you’ll be scratching your head to explain why Mathews got only 32% of the vote in his first year and had to wait five years overall until Cooperstown came calling.

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Clearly, Schmidt is the best ever. Almost any serious commentator would say that, and they wouldn’t need to look it up.

Still wondering why Mathews needed five ballots to make the Hall? This is a quick tangent from our man of the hour.

Mathews was 6th on the all-time home run list when he retired after the 1968 season. However, by the time he was on the ballot, he had dropped to 10th place. I’d bet my last silver dollar that the writers held it against Matthews that he was a .271 career hitter.

Now that the Mathews tangent is over, where would you rank Beltre among the other non-Schmidt third sackers? It’s easy to say #3 because that’s where WAR puts him. The key to that high WAR, besides his superior defensive metrics, is Beltre’s 12,130 career plate appearances. “Just showing up” is a component that can build a player’s WAR, especially at a key defensive position. Becoming a regular at the age of 20 (as Beltre did) and holding a full-time job for 20 years will tend to pad your plate appearances.

However, Beltre’s 116 OPS+ makes it hard for me to anoint him the 3rd best third baseman. Despite having the most hits and most home runs this septet, he was, to me, only the sixth-best of these seven players on the offensive side of the ball.

Adrian Beltre’s Dominican Legacy

The discussion about whether Adrian Beltre deserves to be considered the 3rd, or 5th, or 7th best third baseman in the history of baseball is functionally irrelevant. The fact that he’s in that conversation makes him an all-time great at the position. It makes him a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

Beltre, whose Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be this Sunday, will be the fourth player from the Dominican Republic to be inducted in a ten-year period. Pedro Martinez was inducted in 2015, Vladimir Guerrero was inducted in 2018, and David Ortiz made it in 2022.

When Beltre was born in 1979, the original Dominican Dandy (Juan Marichal) was less than four years from having finished his career. The amount of great baseball players produced by the tiny island nation in the years since is remarkable.

Throughout his career, Beltre played the game as if he were a rookie trying to make the roster. He played hard, and he played with joy. A poster boy for the cliche about Dominican players that “you don’t walk your way off the island,” Beltre’s ability to golf for low pitches, with his right knee scraping the dirt, is the image I’ll always carry in my mind about this great player.

“We didn’t walk much. I don’t know if it is the way we do things, but usually when the Dominican players come to the plate, we come to swing the bat… I was impressed with him (Beltre) from the beginning… His agility. His hitting, which is going to take him to the Hall of Fame. You cannot be only a glove guy to get to the Hall of Fame.”

— Felipe Alou (in the Dallas Morning News, article by Gerry Fraley)

Congratulations in advance, Adrian Beltre. Your future enshrinement in Cooperstown is well deserved.

Thanks for reading. Please follow Cooperstown Cred on X @cooperstowncred.

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