was for Andruw Jones<\/a> \u2014 but only after a rough initial stretch in The Bronx, picking up his play enough to convince the Yankees to re-sign him for the final season of his career.\u00a0<\/p>\nCarlos Beltran had a long run with the Mets. Getty Images<\/p>\n
All succeeded, to varying degrees, in New York, and all built careers legendary enough that they will be enshrined Sunday in baseball\u2019s Hall of Fame.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In many ways, they all are outliers, and Beltr\u00e1n might now be discovering how many players never quite figure out New York. <\/p>\n
As special assistant to David Stearns, he has watched the Mets gamble on the likes of Bo Bichette, Freddy Peralta, Luis Robert Jr., Jorge Polanco and Marcus Semien, none of whom has performed (albeit for various, debatable reasons). <\/p>\n
It is difficult to import players from other markets, particularly small ones, and count on the talent and results to translate immediately.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Few know this better than Beltr\u00e1n, who emerged as a star in six and a half seasons with the Royals and a half season with the Astros before signing a seven-year, $119 million megadeal with the Mets in 2005.\u00a0<\/p>\n
You know what happened next: An MVP candidate the previous two seasons was ordinary in his first with the Mets, his homers dropping from 38 in 2004 to 16 and his OPS from .915 to .744.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you don\u2019t understand the process, sometimes it could be overwhelming. For me, it was,\u201d said Beltr\u00e1n, who recovered well enough that his Hall of Fame bust will feature a Mets hat. \u201cComing from Kansas City, playing in New York at the beginning, I didn\u2019t understand why the fans were getting on me. When I played in Kansas City, I never got booed. All of a sudden I\u2019m in New York, I\u2019m like: They booed me this whole month.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m like: Oh, my God, I just signed here for seven years and these people, they have no patience with me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In those days, Beltr\u00e1n said, he didn\u2019t have anybody to guide him around the arrows and through the adversity. <\/p>\n
He had to learn for himself how to deal with the media glare and fan expectations and jeers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The lessons he gained along the way he has shared with the Mets of today, including talking with Francisco Lindor before and after his rough first campaign with the Mets.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a city where the fanbase supports their team, but at the same time they expect excellence out of the players,\u201d said Beltr\u00e1n, who also played two and a half seasons with the Yankees. \u201cThey understand the game, they know how much money you\u2019re making, so they want you to earn every single penny.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
His advice to those struggling to adapt?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re going to be fine,\u201d Beltr\u00e1n said. \u201cKeep playing hard. Keep taking care of your preparation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jeff Kent of the New York Mets trots around the bases after hitting
a home run in 1993. Getty Images<\/p>\n
Like Beltr\u00e1n, Kent said he learned plenty in New York, though Kent \u2014 who found his way to Cooperstown through the Contemporary Era committee \u2014 had to master the expectations that arrive internally and externally when being traded.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Enjoying a strong rookie season with the Blue Jays in 1992, Kent was shipped (with Ryan Thompson) to the Mets for David Cone, who was in the middle of his second All-Star season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In Kent\u2019s mind, Cone had been the Mets\u2019 best player. <\/p>\n
And so Kent tried to fill Cone\u2019s shoes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI just came from the American League, and so [I\u2019m like], \u2018Who cares about David Cone? I\u2019m Jeff Kent. I\u2019m good. I can play,\u2019\u201d said Kent, who sparred with teammates and heard some boos from fans after an unpopular trade. \u201cBoy, I got beat up for that one.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kent performed with the Mets, hitting 67 home runs with a .780 OPS in four and a half years before being dealt to Cleveland in 1996 in the trade that brought in Carlos Baerga and Alvaro Espinoza.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And being shipped for Baerga tested Kent\u2019s ego again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Andruw Jones #22 of the New York Yankees attempts to make a diving catch during the game against the Toronto Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium on August 29, 2012. Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a player, we\u2019re cocky and arrogant enough, we need to believe that we\u2019re the best guy,\u201d Kent said. \u201cSo I had that in me, but I had to tame that a little bit and use it as a tool rather than use it as a flamboyant, drama, verbal piece.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jones had a shorter career in New York, spending just his twilight years of 2011-12 with the Yankees. <\/p>\n
And even the veteran, a five-time All-Star and 10-time Gold Glove winner, needed an adjustment period.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2011, Jones got off to a miserable start \u2014 36 games into his season, he was hitting .195 with a .635 OPS \u2014 but he went on a tear beginning in mid-July, a stretch that led to the Yankees bringing him back for a final season in The Bronx and in the majors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Along with his other late-career stops, Jones said New York was \u201cawesome.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to say that New York is a great place,\u201d Beltr\u00e1n said after his words of warning. \u201cIt\u2019s a place where you grow, you expand yourself, you get to meet so many great people.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI got to meet a lot of good people in the game. And I will have to say that most of the most meaningful relationships that I built in the game, I did it wearing a Mets uniform.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COOPERSTOWN \u2014 From his experience as a player to his perch as a Mets adviser, Carlos Beltr\u00e1n is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[115750,33324,41542,115751,20,9,24,55,54,320,321,56,319],"class_list":["post-305712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-andruw-jones","tag-baseball-hall-of-fame","tag-carlos-beltran","tag-jeff-kent","tag-mlb","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-new-york-mets","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-ny","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}