DH Steroid Witchhunt: Adrian Beltre

By TheNaturalMevs on May 16, 2007

This guy has seemingly been around in baseball forever. He came up to the big leagues in 1998 with the Los Angeles Dodgers when he was just 19 years old. This guy we’re talking about is Adrian Beltre.

The other night, editor George made the mistake of calling him ‘Andre Beltre’ in one of his posts. Now, certainly if this fellow was still an impact big league player, and not a guy who has been dropped to 8th in the lineup recently of a weak hitting Mariners ballclub, George wouldn’t have made the mistake of calling a man with Dominican heritage ‘Andre’. That’s just awful.

Alliterations aside, we’re here to dissect the steroid probability of this large and scary player, Adrian Beltre.

One thing that would point to steroid use? Amazing durability. In his early to prime years of which he’s in right now (28 years of age), Beltre played in 150+ games in 6 of 8 full seasons, only missing time once due to an injury and he still played in 120 some and 130 some games in 2000 and 2001 respectively. I would be willing to bet that after his prime years are through in approximately 3 or so years he’s got some ligaments and tendons that are just waiting to tear and say ‘heh, we gotcha you son of a bitch’.

The biggest factor on all this, and why he’ll forever have a black eye in steroid laden talks; is the year 2004. Beltre just hit the ball harder that year altogether, which is why he hit some .40 points higher than his previous career high in batting average (.334). He had some of the most statistically dominating numbers EVER put up in any era. I’m suggesting they were tainted.

Before that season, Beltre was just a prospect that had a lot of unfulfilled potential. That year though; his contract year; was a year in which he had to produce to set himself for his future financially. He just missed 50 homeruns with 48, keep in mind he’s never even hit 30 or close to it that year. He hit 19 the season afterwards. A power drop-off like that is just unheard of. Spikes in numbers like Beltre’s can only mean one thing; syringes and horse pills!

He made Dodger Stadium look like Coors field for a season. For that, we have our verdict, as if you don’t know already. He was already a big bodied athlete. When he got some added help; however–this guy became unhuman with a bat in his hands.

Steroid User Rating/Probability: 94.3% Roider
Status: Guilty. “You’re having Tacos? I’ll have some HGH.”