why so high on Beltran?

[AKhomebrewer]

... don't forget that (ARod) had plenty of high-BA seasons in Seattle (as well as high power numbers).

Mostly in the Kingdome, before the M's moved into pitcher-friendly Safeco (which is part of the reason both Griffey and ARod wanted out).

Meanwhile, not to hijack the Beltran portion of the thread, but I'm with Jackal on both ARod and Helton ... who have both taken a hit in my rankings. A-Rod is an excellent player but at a supremely deep position. Helton will always hit for average, but with his supporting cast and the first signs of a hinky back flaring up last summer, I've got him late first/early second round these days.

[JustAnotherYanksFan]

Unlike someone said earlier in this tread, lack of steals CANNOT hurt you and low average CAN. That's because steals are cumulative only. BA is AVERAGED together, so a low BA will absolutely, positively hurt your numbers by REDUCING your overall BA.

Now, I'm not an expert on this, but I think it's fairly obvious that this reasoning is a bit flawed. BA is only averaged together because that's how we arbitrarily decide to calculate it. If we wanted, we could have average bases stolen per player, or we could add up all the players' batting averages. Obviously, you couldn't literally add them up because you need to take into account the number of AB, but the point is that it doesn't matter whether the stat is cumulative or averaged; the amount that a player is above or below average will help you or hurt you just as much either way.

For example, let's assume I'm in a hypothetical league with 9 hitters per team. if the average team in my league has a BA of .280 and I have Beltran hitting .270 (and 8 other guys hitting .280), then he brings me down a bit and I go down a bit in BA, to about .279 or .278.

However, let's say that the average team in my league has 90 SB. If I have 8 players with 10 SB each and then Todd Helton with 5 SB, it would bring my SB down to 85. If, by having a different player, I would have had 90 SB, then Helton having only 5 SB hurts me just as much as Beltran batting only .270.

[JustAnotherYanksFan]

The one thing to keep in mind is that a because the average BA is higher than the average SB, a truly abysmal BA would hurt you more than 0 steals. But since I don't see Beltran hitting .240 this season (or whatever's equivalent to 0 steals), it doesn't matter anyway.

[umcsom]

just a bump to see if anyone has changed their minds yet....

[WittyC]

This is ridiculous... just wait until the Mets are 10-15 games out. Randolph will realize he's an idiot for not using his speed and Beltran will get moved to the 2-hole and start running like crazy.

Beltran's younger, faster and has more power. The lineups are pretty similar talent-wise (with Thome out), and Shea isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be, as HR are typically right on par for the league.

Both of these guys are worthy of first round selections... but Beltran's upside is what makes him a top four pick. You pretty much know what you're getting with Abreu (30-30, or something similar).