Rangers third baseman Adrian Beltre underwent surgery on his left thumb yesterday, the club announced via press release. The club expects that he’ll “be fully ready for spring training,” per the statement.
The club explained that scar tissue was removed and a general clean-up was performed. Beltre injured a ligament in the thumb on May 31 on a slide, according to the team.
The veteran played through the injury for much of the year, drawing stunned admiration in the process. Beltre, 36, managed not only to appear in 143 games and take 619 trips to the plate, but produced a .287/.334/.453 slash with 18 home runs while drawing typically stellar defensive ratings.
All in all, it wasn’t that far from a typical season for the future Hall-of-Famer, who’ll earn $18MM next year in the final year of his contract. It’s not to soon to call that five-year, $80MM pact — which included a 2016 option, now guaranteed, to bring its total value to $96MM over six seasons — an outright bargain. Beltre has already contributed about 30 rWAR since coming to Texas.
The way to grade a FA signing is: did this guy deliver as advertised? With Beltre the answer is an absolute yes. The Rangers went after Adrian after Cliff Lee decided to sign with the Phillies. I’m sure Texas is glad things happened the way they did.
Ton of respect for Beltre. He’s always hurt, but manages to continue to play through almost everything, at an extremely high level. One of my favorite players of this generation
5.8 wins above replacement(21st in all of baseball) at age 36 playing with an injured and wrapped thumb from June to September, enough said.