Attention, Adrian Beltre Fans

While I'll concede that he's a marvelous defensive player and a decent dude, I've been pretty consistent with my criticism of Adrian Beltre, the M's $13.4 million man who's failed to come anywhere close to the monster 2004 L.A. campaign that preceded his signing with Seattle. Every time I offer up a critique of Beltre, I get bombarded with counterarguments from stat geeks and Beltre apologists who still feel as though he's one of the best third-sackers in the game.

Now that we're a quarter of the way through the season, and Beltre's hitting .211 with two homers while sucking the life out of the middle of the M's order (along with Junior), are there still Mariner fans out there who are willing to defend Beltre's virtue, or does everyone think, like I do, that he'll end up being trade fodder around the deadline?