We have not written a lot about recent Cooperstown “electee” Adrián Beltré; in fact, the only award we ever considered him for was the 2004 National League MVP—and we gave it to him instead of cheatin’ Barry Bonds. He briefly came up in our GOAT discussion for his era as the best third baseman of the time period, but we did not advance him to the final round(s) of discussion for that analysis. Then, of course, this news.

In that Hall of Fame election context, we referenced him as “an all-time great” … but we’ve been asked a few times since if we think Beltré was a product of his specific era (i.e., the PED Era as we called in that GOAT analysis). We really never thought of him that way, due to a lack of press box rumors/whispers we were privy to in 10 years covering MLB for CBS and its various news affiliates from 2009 to 2018. So, let’s look.

The data always tell us a lot, and in our House That Steroids Built and Fenway Frauds series, we detailed a lot of tell-tale signs for individual cheating (different from our team cheating recipe, of course): players coming off injuries and needing to justify big contracts; players in decline but desperate for one last big payday; fringe talents trying to stick in the majors and land a big contract; and desperate teams in cahoots.

So, what does Beltré’s statistical profile tell us?

First, we see a relatively average player from 1998 to 2003, with one decent year at age 21 in 2000, when he posted an .835 OPS. But otherwise, Beltré was underachieving based on expectation and hype. Then, at age 25, he exploded in his “contract year” of 2004—which now looks quite fishy to us, considering its 1.017 OPS and counting stats. For example, he doubled his career best in home runs, which alone is quite suspicious.

This could qualify under the “fringe talents” condition above: Beltré posted OPS+ marks of 73, 102, 114, 91, 97, and 88 in the years prior to 2004. Average that out, and you get a 94.2 OPS+ player (unscientifically, due to AB weights for individual seasons we’re not considering right now in this topical assessment). That is the definition of a fringe talent, and then suddenly? Beltré explodes for a 163 OPS+ mark in 2004. How?

Good question. It was a contract year, and Beltré secured a 5-year deal with the Seattle Mariners worth approximately $64M. Mission accomplished? We’d say so. Of course, it’s always possible, that age 25, everything finally just clicked for the highly talented Los Angeles Dodgers one-time prospect, and he figured out MLB pitching, etc. We’ve seen that happen in a seemingly “clean” sense, so we have to think.

Second, with the Mariners over 5 seasons, Beltré struggled in what should have been his prime (ages 26-30 seasons): just a .759 OPS and a 101 OPS+ marks. Some people blamed the ballpark effects, but Dodger Stadium isn’t really a hitter’s park in the first place, and plenty of players were raking the ball in Seattle’s new stadium during the 2000s. That rationale doesn’t seem to fly with us in this analysis. So what does?

Let’s assume Beltré was using during the 2004 season, and he got his big contract—so he stopped using. We have seen this before with Boston Red Sox and San Francisco Giants players. One-season use for a specific purpose and then back to the norms, whatever those may be. So, through almost 12 seasons of play with the Dodgers (.794 OPS) and Mariners (.759), Beltré had proven himself to be an average hitter with a great glove.

As he became a free agent again after disastrous 2009 season at the plate (.683 OPS) probably due to injury, no one was biting on Beltré’s services. He was going to be 31, and that’s when players’ primes begin to end, and his “prime” in Seattle wasn’t very good at all. So why would anyone take this bait? Enter the Red Sox. We didn’t mention Beltré in our PED assessment of their 2010 roster, but maybe we should have done so.

Third, he signed a 1-year deal with Boston worth $9M as a chance to resuscitate his career (“player in decline but desperate” condition noted above). This may have been his last chance to prove he should stay in MLB, in truth, considering the overall blah career at the plate he’d had so far from 1998-2009 with an OPS well under the .800 mark. So, naturally, on a team already known for its PED users, what happens with our guy?

Beltré leads the league in doubles (hello, Green Monster) and posts a .919 OPS, the second-best number of his career after that 2004 season in L.A. At the time, maybe the sudden improvement was written off to the offensive influence of Boston’s bandbox ballpark, especially with those doubles. But the resulting 141 OPS+ effort did what a PED user would want it to do: secured him a huge contract for his 30s from a new team.

Enter the Texas Rangers, a team known for its PED users in the 2000s: Juan González, Iván Rodríguez, etc. They had just lost the 2010 World Series to the cheatin’ Giants, so the Rangers were somewhat desperate to correct that, and they signed Beltré to a new contract—which would end up paying him $132M over 8 seasons that concluded his career. Thus, with two PED-friendly organization, Beltré scored big, financially.

His numbers in Texas were the best ones of his career, by far, in a time when he should have been in decline: .865 OPS and 128 OPS+ marks. It was only in the final year of his time in Texas that his OPS dipped under .800 again, at age 39. So, while he didn’t imitate a clown like Bonds or David Ortiz, he still played at a fairly high level until his age-38 season. That’s 7 more seasons of probable PED use, in truth, at that point.

To justify the big contract despite his aging status, even though the Rangers never won a World Series with him on the roster, despite losing the 2011 Fall Classic, too, in gut-wrenching fashion. But “needing to justify a big contract” is another condition we’ve established previously in our PED analyses. So, that makes it three strikes for Beltré now: 2004, 2010, and 2011-2017. All these data points establish a clear pattern.

Conclusion? Well … we will have to re-assign our 2004 NL MVP Award someday soon, because in response to reader inquiry, we now think Beltré was a PED user. We can’t “prove” it, of course, but as we have said before, one piece of circumstantial datum is an anomaly; two pieces are coincidental; and three pieces is a pattern. Beltré at multiple points in his career checks off boxes of a PED user and fits the pattern/profile.

We know baseball is a dirty sport; we’ve established this aplenty. We generally want to assume the best of people and players, but as we learned from Watergate 50 years ago, corruption rules the day: follow the money. There is clear statistical evidence that in that pursuit of guaranteed money during multiple points in a then-fledgling MLB career, this player decided to indulge multiple times with multiple teams. Case closed.