No hocus focus: free agent-to-be Carlos Beltran likely will leave the Royals family, but distractions won't hamper his game.(Baseball)

Carlos Beltran has a new toy. It's a pitching machine that blasts tennis balls at speeds of up to 140 mph. Beltran begins his workdays with 10 minutes in a batting cage trying to read the handwritten numbers on the DayGlo yellow blurs whizzing past him. The exercise helps him focus.

Focus is good, especially for someone in Beltran's shoes.

He is the best player on a Royals club that was the most improved team in the American League last year and has bigger plans for this season--if its switch-hitting center fielder delivers as expected. That would be production in the neighborhood of 30 homers, 100 RBIs, a .300 batting average and 40 stolen bases.

The on-field production is the fun part. The tricky part is carrying a club while knowing this is his final season in Kansas City. Beltran is eligible to become a free agent after the season and, barring a surprise akin to a World Series run by the Tigers, the Royals won't re-sign him. They already have told him as much. "It is unrealistic to think he will be here," acknowledges Royals general manager Allard Baird, who does not foresee making another offer to Beltran's agent, Scott Boras.

Kansas City would love to keep him, but Beltran is simply too good. For the small-revenue Royals, trying to sign him is like trying to buy a Hummer on a used-car budget. Beltran, just shy of 27, might be the best all-around center fielder in the game and, as Baird says, "He will only get better." One general manager says Beltran should end up with a deal bigger than the five-year, $70 million contract the Angels gave Vladimir Guerrero. When a player is good enough to make $14 million or $15 million per year, only a few teams can afford him. The Royals aren't one of them.

From New York to Los Angeles, from opening day until October, Beltran is bound to hear as many questions about where he'll be next year as what he's doing this year. He is ready for them. About an hour before the Royals opened the season against the White Sox last Monday, when most of his teammates were scattered in areas off-limits to the media, Beltran sat at his clubhouse locker and took time to address his situation.

"I leave everything in God's hands. I don't think about the business side. All I can concern myself with is what I do on the field," he says. "No matter what I do here, the team is going to do what's best for them, and I'm going to do whatever's best for me and my family. I put it aside and think about the season."