The SF Giants will celebrate Brandon Belt in a pre-game ceremony later today, with the Miami Marlins in town. The tribute comes after years in which fans argued on social media over whether Belt was really a good player, even as his numbers kept telling a steadier story.
Belt started his career in 2011 and built a run that lasted 13 major league seasons. He hit for a low average and struck out a lot, and he eclipsed the 20-homer threshold just once. But that only tells part of it. He hit at least 15 home runs each year, piled up doubles and even some triples, and drew enough walks to stay on base far more often than the raw batting average suggested. His career line was.261/.357/.460, with a 125 wRC+ and a 12.4 percent walk rate.
The weight of that production is why Belt’s case has always been harder to settle than the online debate made it seem. Analytics lifted his stock because they captured value that a simple look at home runs and average could miss, and his power totals were depressed by playing half of his games at Oracle Park. That made him a tough player to replace, especially for a Giants team that spent years trying to find someone who could give them the same mix of patience, pop and consistency.
The friction in Belt’s story is that both sides of the argument can sound right at once. He never looked like a classic star if the eye test began and ended with average and strikeouts. But he was also a very solid player for a long time, and the numbers show it. Later today, the Giants will salute a player whose value was often easier to measure after he was gone than while he was still in the lineup.