Five reasons why Adrian Beltre is inducted into the Hall of Fame

It has been a pleasure to watch Adrian Beltre play baseball for two decades.

From his signature home runs to his cheerful demeanor on the field, the Dominican third baseman was a unique player who gave fans many memorable moments during his career. Now Beltre is on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time, and it’s only a matter of time before he’s inducted into the Cooperstown Pavilion.

Here are five reasons why Beltre deserves a spot in the Hall of Fame.

1) He is a member of the 3000 hits club.

Beltre has 3,166 reasons why he should be in the room. He is 17th on the all-time list with that many hits and is just one of 33 members of the 3,000-hit club.

If you have 3,000 hits in the majors, you’re practically guaranteed a spot in the hall. Almost all the members of the 3,000-person hit club are already in Cooperstown or, like Beltre, will be there soon (Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera and Ichiro Suzuki are the others).

As a member of one of the most exclusive and famous clubs in baseball, Beltre deserves to be in the hall because of this criterion. He has more hits than George Brett, Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, Puerto Rican Roberto Clemente… just to name a few of the Major League legends he has surpassed in this regard.

2) He’s one of the best third basemen of all time, period.

Whether you look at his traditional statistics or his more modern ones, Beltre is a Hall of Famer. Here we will look at modern ones. Beltre is the third-best third baseman in Major League history in wins above replacement with 93.5 WAR (Baseball Reference Version). The only third basemen who are superior to him are Mike Schmidt and Eddie Matthews; Beltre is ahead of Hall of Famers Wade Boggs, George Brett, Chipper Jones, Brooks Robinson, Paul Molitor, Ron Santo and Scott Rolen.

If you look at Beltre’s WAR career from his prime years, he is also one of the top five third basemen in history, along with Schmidt, Matthews, Boggs and Brett. WAR is not the only thing that indicates who is “better”, but it demonstrates the level of excellence that Beltre belongs to: the Hall of Fame.

(Note: For these purposes, Alex Rodriguez is considered a shortstop because it is at shortstop that he has played the most games. If he were considered a third baseman, he would be WAR’s career leader.)

**3) He had a bat and a glove**

There are many in the Hall of Fame who came to Cooperstown because of his bat. Some, like Ozzie Smith, support his glove. Beltre had both. He won four Silver Bats at third base, where he also won Gold Gloves (even in 2011 and 2012, he won the first two Platinum Gloves as the best defensive player in the American League).

Let’s go back to Beltre’s WAR for a moment. His total career WAR can be broken down into offensive and defensive components. Offensively, Beltre is the seventh most valuable third baseman in Major League history, behind only Matthews, Schmidt, Jones, Brett, Boggs and Molitor. And defensively, he is the second-leading third baseman in Major League history; in this respect he is surpassed only by Robinson.

You can argue that third basemen like Schimdt and Rolen were as good or better than Beltre offensively, but the goal is to showcase Beltre’s level. So he was at that level on both sides of the ball. His value was in every aspect of his game.

4) He not only had hits, but also power.3,166 hits is the highlight of Beltre’s attack, but we must not forget that he also provided power.

The Dominican finished his career with 477 home runs, 1.51 extra-base hits and 1,707 RBIs. Here’s a look at where those numbers place him on the historical charts:

Beltre had five seasons with 30 or more home runs and 12 with 20 or more. He had eight seasons in which he had 60 or more extra-base hits. He even led the Major Leagues in home runs once, in 2004, when he hit 48 home runs.

His production is Hall of Fame level regardless of his defensive position, and he especially excels at the hot corner.

5) He has been a superstar in four different franchises and is an icon in one.

During his 21-year Major League career, Beltre played for four clubs: the Dodgers, Mariners, Red Sox and Rangers.

The third baseman was a star with all of these clubs and improved with age, just as with the Rangers, his last team, he became a beloved Texas icon. As a Rangers player called to three of four All-Star Games, he played in four of five postseasons and amassed 3,000 hits.

In eight seasons with Texas, Beltre played 1,098 games and had a .304 batting average, 1,277 hits, 199 home runs and 699 RBIs. Peo also finished second in MVP voting while in Los Angeles; was selected to play in the All-Star Game in Boston; and won two Golden Gloves in Seattle.

Beltre’s longevity as a superstar—he shone wherever he played for more than two decades and finished his career with his best years as a major league player—is another reason why there is no doubt that he belongs in the Hall of Fame.