A fellow fan made a comment about Carlos Beltran being “physically soft”. That didn’t sound right to me. So I did some quick research.
From 2005 to 2008, Beltran played the 28th most games in all of MLB (tied with Berkman and Peralta). During that time the most any one player could play was 648 games which no player managed to do. Ichiro led with 646 games. Beltran had 596 games. That’s about 92% of all possible games played (648). Now assume, every team has that one player that the team sends out and relies on to play every single day, well the Mets have three of those guys in David Wright, Jose Reyes, and Carlos Beltran. The most players a team had in this top 30 list was 4 players. The Phillies have Jimmy Rollins, Pat Burrell, Pedro Feliz, and Chase Utley. The Yankees on the flip side also have three guys from that list: Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, and Mark Teixeira. Any player who can crack the top 30 in games played during a 4 year stretch isn’t physically soft.
Here is the list of players and their games played from 2005 to 2008:
| Rank | Names | Games Played |
| 1 | Ichiro Suzuki | 646 |
| 2 | Grady Sizemore | 639 |
| 3 | David Wright | 634 |
| 4 | Miguel Cabrera | 633 |
| Jose Reyes | 633 | |
| 6 | Bobby Abreu | 632 |
| Raul Ibanez | 632 | |
| Michael Young | 632 | |
| 9 | Adam Dunn | 630 |
| 10 | Jason Bay | 621 |
| 11 | Derek Jeter | 619 |
| Randy Winn | 619 | |
| 13 | Justin Morneau | 618 |
| 14 | Jimmy Rollins | 615 |
| Miguel Tejada | 615 | |
| 16 | Mark Teixeira | 613 |
| 17 | Alex Rodriguez | 612 |
| 18 | Pat Burrell | 610 |
| Orlando Cabrera | 610 | |
| Albert Pujols | 610 | |
| 21 | Garrett Atkins | 607 |
| 22 | Juan Pierre | 605 |
| 23 | Adrian Beltre | 604 |
| 24 | Felipe Lopez | 601 |
| 25 | Carlos Lee | 600 |
| 26 | Pedro Feliz | 599 |
| 27 | Chase Utley | 598 |
| 28 | Carlos Beltran | 596 |
| Lance Berkman | 596 | |
| Jhonny Peralta | 596 | |
