It's not only that Carlos Beltran looked at the final strike of the 2006 NLCS, ending the Mets' last serious chance at a title with a whimper. He was also often the best and the highest-paid player on a team that, for seven years, could never get out of its own way. There were the epic collapses of 2007 and 2008 when no relief pitcher could get more than two outs, the firing of Willie Randolph at 3 a.m. EST, the mishandled concussions of Ryan Church and Jason Bay, the recurring injuries to the stars, Beltran's secret knee surgery that sparked a feud with management, the badly designed new ballpark, the punches Francisco Rodriguez threw at his girlfriend's father, Fred Wilpon's ripping the team in the pages of the New Yorker, and the team's severe financial weakness because of the Wilpons' investments with Bernard Madoff. The team had a quite a few well-paid stars (and a few more well-paid non-stars), but never the ability to figure it all out. When the pitching was up, the hitting was down, and so on in many permutations.
Nevertheless, Beltran had three excellent seasons with the Mets, from 2006 to 2008, when he had between 112 and 116 RBI and an OPS between .876 and .982. He was an All-Star five times, too. This year, when he should be starting his career's decline, he's been pleasantly productive, and I'd found myself ambivalent about the likelihood of a trade. (The trade happened Thursday, to the San Francisco Giants.) Beltran was never particularly emotional as a player, but he wasn't obnoxious either and was relatively easy to root for. That he's now traded is one of many signs the past couple of years that the Mets are far away from contending again for the playoffs. They've played surprisingly well so far this year, but at this point, the only above-average players on the roster are Jose Reyes and David Wright. The team always seems to play better when the expectations are low.
And I don't think anyone could've hit that curveball Adam Wainwright threw to end Game 7.
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