Afternoon Baseball

ESPN.com
- MLB - Stark: Face of the Franchise

Mike Piazza has to be thrilled -- he no longer has to carry the burden. But the pressures on Carlos Beltran are very real, and almost demand that he repeat his brilliant, though inconsistent split season of 2004 -- except without the inconsistency. He got away with no HR in his last 24 games because the Astros were busy going 31-8 to finish the season (with 7- and 12-game winning streaks in that span).
Beltran has all this pressure with a lighter resume than Piazza had. As I detailed in July (and both Mike and Beltran proved me wrong a bit), Beltran still has only had one season better than Bernie Williams' peak years, and it is still arguable whether he is a better player NOW (not the next 5-10 years) than Helton, Rolen, Garrett Anderson, Edmonds, Sheffield, or the vastly underrated Bobby Abreu.

The key is going to be, can Beltran keep his game at the 2004 level and handle all the extra scrutiny? The Mets may be bad no matter what he does, but it's hard to see how they could possibly be good without him at his best.